New Tracks for the Tank

After a few days of cooling off about wrecking my rear wheel on the pavement of all places I am better now. I did some discount shopping on the clearance rack at Etheric North (Brian's basement) and walked away with a used set of 717's laced to XT hubs. Attached was an used XT cassette and an XT rotor on the rear wheel and Avid on the front. And, not done yet, a set of Kenda Nevegals set up with Stans rim strips and already running tubeless. Yep, a complete wheelset and I didn't have to spin a single wrench. Brian has 3 bikes and 4 sets of wheels. He said he really didn't need them anymore. I was just going to borrow them but then thought it'd be nice to have another set laying around for times like this week.

So while I sit and figure out what to do with my other wheelset I have these to roll around on for the rest of the season. I am at peace once again.

I did make a change a couple weeks ago I never mentioned. I sold my XTR crankset/bb and bought a Truvativ Stylo 1.1 to put on the Kona. It looks nice, all black with a touch of chrome, and now I have Truvativ SS cranks on both my mtbs so I can swap rings when needed.

The Triple Trail Challenge is going on this weekend, rescheduled due to weather. I hope to make it out there even if I am the only one.

As far as the racing scene goes Russ along with his family and Heather and Gerry plan to do their first CX event this Saturday. Jeff and Brian will be at Addsion Sunday for another XC race. Good luck to all and I hope to hear good news Monday morning.

Signs

Every where we go we see signs. STOP. ONE WAY. NO LEFT TURN. NO TURN ON RED. These are the more common ones. Well today I saw a sign of something different. If you read my last post and did some simple math you'd know it has been almost 6 weeks since I have been on a trail. Part due to time and part due to lack of a complete wheelset.

Well I got my wheelset back from Gerry a week and a half ago. All was good. I was all ready for the Triple Trail Challenge on Sept 13th. Well as the week went on the forecast got worse ad they eventually had to reschedule the event. Good thing to. 6" of rain in two days. No problem tho, the reschedule date was going to be Sept 20th. I can do this. Well then I had this idea that this week I would drive into work today and then ride my bike home. Then tomorrow morning I would get up and ride into work adn then drive home.

I got it all together....clothes at work for tomorrow in my car. A bag with a towel and all that jazz for showering. I even brought extra food to leave at work so I could pack light. I was all set. So at about 3:15 this afternoon I set out for my ride home. Things were great. I was back on my race bike even tho it was on pavement. I was roaring East bound on 9 Mile making my way home, a 30 mile ride I figure I could make in 1:45:00. I had made it to work on my road bike in an hour and a half before in the morning.

So there I was crossing city after city. Novi, gone. Farmington, behind me. Southfield, man am I making good time. Heck I am almost to Ferndale already and only been riding for 37 minutes. Then I hit the construction zone. Better play it safe and stay on the sidewalks. Well the sidewalks were missing at each intersection so I had to do some fancy riding here and there. No problem, I have seen a lot worse on the trails. Well about a mile from Ferndale I was outof sidewalk and I made the small drop to the sand. Thud! PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT! Oh sh!t! I hopped off the bike and rolled the wheel around to get my Stans to seal it up. No good, tire went dead fast. It's then that I saw this:

and this:

Crap....Still 17 miles from home. So I unclip the pack and get my spare tube. Even tho I have Stans ZTR Olympic wheels I carry a tube in case. Well I got the tube in and guess what? Yep, it has a pinhole. Muther f@#$%^&*! So now my houseis 17 miles one way and my car is 13 miles the other way. I opt to walk East toward home and got my cell phone out. First person to call is Mr Wizzard knowing he is the #1 guy to find me a local bike shop fast. Problem was he was in his car. He said he'd call me back asap with an answer. In the mean time I called Jeff hoping he hadn't left work yet. Good news, still at his desk and said he could come get me. Jeff works in Southfield and lives close to me so I am kind of on his way home.

Gerry calls back minutes later and I tell him Jeff is coming to get me. In the mean time I told Jeff I would meet him at Pinecrest and 9 Mile which was still a mile away. As I am walking a kid comes by on his sister's bike that was too small for him but he way carrying a 5 dollar pizza while riding so I was impressed. He asked what was wrong and then I explained to him what had happened. However I spent more time trying to explain to this 12 year old why exactly it was that I didn't have tubes in my tires in the first place. It was quite comical. In the end he kept me company for the walk and offered me a slice of pizza. We got to Taco Bell where I was suppose to meet Jeff and said he had to get home.

Jeff showed up at the Taco Bell parking lot minutes later and drove me home. Thanks man, I owe you one. So what's this sign I saw? The f-ed up rim. After weeks of not riding on that bike and to get it back and on my first ride biff the wheel. I'm done. No more trail bike riding this season for me. It'll take a couple weeks to get my wheel back from Stans......if I can come up with the cash to pay for another hoop. I'm strictly on the road bike now like I have been the past 6 weeks. No Triple Trail Challenge. No Massive Fallout. Done.

In fact the ending of this part of the story leaves me telling you that my car is still in Novi. That means I still need to get up tomorrow at 4am to be out the door at 4:30 so I can ride back to work on my road bike.

What will tomorrow bring. Tune in and hopefully it will be a better story. I have 3 road tubes left and I plan to pack them all.