Well, that was an adventure

The Base Two Cycle Club in Evanston does a pancake run a few times a year, riding from Evanston to Algonquin, eating breakfast at Bella's Short Stack before returning. Round trip is about 95 miles. One such ride was planned for Labor Day, and I rode for the first time. I still don't know the exact distance, however, as you will soon see.

The forecast showed a reasonable chance for rain, so I decided to ride my fixed gear commuter, an old Trek 520 set up with Schwalbe Kojak tires (700x35). Plush. As I knew I would be slower than the rest of the group, I planned to leave a bit early. I checked my mail before I left around 5:20. Nothing. I then checked it again when I got to the meeting point about 5:35. There was this rather ominous mail from Ed Reed saying, "Consider there are many hills west of long grove." I thought, "crap," but responded, "A bit late for that now. I'm not too period [sic] to walk a few.... Wave as you go past." (I include my smart ass phone's spell correction for proud...)

As I'm riding along I'm a bit worried. I've done the Dairyland Dare a few times and used to live west of Albany, NY where every ride was a hill ride, unless you took NY Route 5 to Amsterdam, right along the Mohawk River. I didn't know we even had hills in Illiniois. Maybe the Driftless Zone got close to Chicago? I plowed on, doing mental calculations about my current gearing, what I rode on the Dare this year, and figuring I would surely be walking up some hills. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Fate had other plans for me. I did do some walking, but it was on mostly level ground. The hills were more more like bee stings, bumps just big enough to obscure your vision.

Well into the ride, a bit west of Lake Zurich, I flatted. I hadn't been running with sealant in these tubes and didn't have any with me, but I had the usual cornucopia of tube, pump, tire levers (not needed), and 15mm wrench. A couple messy minutes later (I forgot to pack disposable gloves), I had my wheel off and my brand new tube out ready to install. Put a little air into it to puff it up a bit. Sssssss... Try again. Again, with the snake imitation. Not being completely insane, I did something different the third time and listened for where the air was leaking out. Crap. A brand new tube with a leak. "Kenda, never again." I might have that tattooed on my ankle. Or copyright the phrase and reap millions from copyright infringement lawsuits. Or submit a suggestion for a new definition to the OED folks, something like "Kenda (n) - cycling products which rarely work, and never when you really need them." Whatever will keep me from ever buying any of their products again.

At this point, all I could do is wait for another bikie to to come along with a tube. I didn't have to wait more than a couple minutes before I saw three bikes approaching. I hailed them and they pulled over. One of them gave me a tube (brand new Bontrager still in its box). I noticed one of the other guys looked familiar. It was my dentist, Paul Fischl. In my surprise to see him so far from my home (but quite likely much closer to his), I forgot to inspect his bike to see if was full dentist.

They went on their way and I resumed messing around with my rear wheel. I installed the tube, pumped up the tire, and was just about to pull out, when who should I see but the Base Two folks heading west? "Hi!" "Hi!" And they were gone. I didn't worry about it, I hadn't expected to keep up with them anyway. I was only about 12 miles away from breakfast. Surely I would get there while they were still downing mountains of pancakes.

But no... In fairly short order (maybe another mile or two), I got a second flat. I tried pumping it up. This got me a quarter mile or so further. Lather, rinse, repeat a couple times. To preserve some semblance of sanity, I stopped doing that and started walking west. Google told me I was several miles from the nearest bike shop (and would it even be open on a holiday?), so I decided to call it a day and give Ellen a call. She kindly offered to meet me at Bella's to give me a ride home. With a verbal guarantee of a ride home ringing in my ears, I turned right at Ridge Rd and kept walking. Not paying close (or, apparently, any) attention, I missed the turn-off for Spring Creek Rd and continued walking to W. County Line Rd, where I discovered my mistake. While not terribly busy, it's not the best bike road in the world (no shoulder and speeding cars, obviously with very important places to be on a Labor Day morning). Consequently, I didn't see any other bikes until I got to Meadow Hill Rd. At this point, a guy riding a beautiful blue and white Dave Tesch stopped. I was so floored by his bike that the first thing out my mouth wasn't, "Buddy, can you spare a tube?" Rather it was "Wow! You're riding a Tesch!" I eventually came to my senses though, and he gave me a tube, pointed me in the direction of Spring Creek Rd, and went on his way, north on Meadow Hill.

This is the point in the story where tire size becomes important. Recall that I was riding 35mm tires (very comfy, and, evidence suggests, without sacrificing rolling resistance). Both tubes I had been given were of the narrow-as-a-straw variety, however. I pulled the now flat tube. Still thinking that I must have missed a piece of glass in the tire, I inflated the tube a bit to see where it was leaking. Lo and behold, it was leaking around the valve stem. Only then did it dawn on me what probably happened. When I pumped the tire up, the reinforced area of the tube around the valve stem resisted expansion, leaving the area right around the valve stem poorly supported by the rim. Tightening the valve stem nut pulled the tube down to the rim, and caused a leak around the valve stem in short order.

Lesson learned, I didn't pump up the tire as much this time, and also resisted tightening the little presta valve nut too much. Perhaps better would have been to spin on the valve stem nut before mounting the tube to provide support from the rim without demanding the valve stem area expand much. At any rate, the new tube held this time and I was able to make it the rest of the way into Algonquin for my now (I think) well-deserved breakfast. But... Not before I passed the Base Two gang headed home after their own well-deserved repast. Another couple waves. A few minutes later I arrived at Bella's Short Stack, which despite its name, doesn't feature 37 varieties of pancakes on its menu, just buttermilk. Pass the syrup, please...