Two CRAPPY Bike Rides in One Day

Ooooh wee! I had 2 REALLY BAD bike rides last Thursday!

First, I dropped my car off in North St. Paul to be detailed (as my wife had a Groupon and now that we finally kicked the ringworm our kitten Bruce had, we wanted to deep clean the car after lots of vet trips with him to make sure it was gone for good - our house cleaning was CRAZY for about 2 months!). I put my bike on the rack and thought I’d bike back home after leaving my car. It was to be my 3rd real outdoor ride of the year (after a tempo ride in early April and an easier/longer ride earlier last week). I was going to do some 3x5 mile efforts for a decent workout!

I finished up my first effort near the end (well, the “start”) of the Gateway Trail, and I was shocked at how much that trail sucked. That used to be our “go to” trail for longer rides, but I hadn’t ridden it in years before I rode it a bit 1 or 2 years ago and realized I wasn’t missing anything. Horribly bumpy and more intersections than I remembered.

Just after wrapping up my first interval (averaging 22.1 mph for 5 miles), I got off the Gateway and pretty quickly had a blow-out flat. I was happy with how quickly changing out the tube was going, but then my old hand pump which hadn’t seen use in YEARS just exploded in my hand when I tried to use it. A small engine repair shop was just across the road, so I walked over to see if they could help. But the old (semi toothless) man who ran the place had “never seen a fuckin valve like that before.” (And really, I’m not surprised.) We tried to jerry-rig something to get air in the tube, but to no avail.

So I rode off gingerly on my hefty “Gator Skin” tires and just hoped I didn’t hurt my rims. (Or slide out of my tire!) I stood wherever I could to help take weight off my back flat tire. I tired to bunny hop bigger cracks in the road. I got just over a mile to University Ave and hopped on the Light Rail:

Greasy fingers and a $2 ride home.


Eiffel enjoying the ride with a dead flat back tire.


Split 1 to 2 was the 5 mile interval, and then I barely made it any farther.


Heart rate for my 1 interval (from about mile 1.5 to 6.5). The dip before mile 6 was from
getting stopped at an intersection, and the real end of the interval was the final big dip.

I took the wheel to my local bike shop because I wanted someone smarter than me to check out the rim and make sure it was OK. They changed the flat, checked the rim, and sold me a new hand pump. As soon as I walked out, I noticed the tire nearly splitting at one point, so I went back in. Now that it was under pressure, the huge tear in my THICK tires from that crappy trail was really apparent. So... time for a new tire as well. Damn it. But thanks Grand Performance!!

Later in the afternoon, I got a call that my car was done! Time to bike back out and pick it up! The weather gave a slight chance of some rain, and there were a few bigger drops falling when I was about 5-6 miles from home. The sky was looking a little threatening as I was getting on the Gateway:

Just lightly damp roads at this point.


Loads of construction staples. Nice.

THREE minutes after I took that last photo, something caught my eye. What looked like a huge chunk of ice hit the trail a bit in front of me and exploded. And then another. And then another. Some of the biggest hail I’d ever seen started falling from the sky. I stopped to find any sort of cover, and all I found was a tiny tree. Here were some falling near the start of the hailstorm, and my yell was NOT for effect but because I was being pelted (as I was trying to tuck as much of my body under my helmet as I could):

And here’s another video from less than a minute later:

I could hardly get started when it was done because I was pushing off on a bed of round ice balls. Look at these jerks:

DEATH BALLS OF WINTER.


With my bike (and more hail) in the background.


The trail was LITTERED with leaves and small branches. In more heavily
wooded areas, it was hard to differentiate the trail from the grass!


One of the Gateway bridges COVERED in hail.


My legs once I got to the detailer to get my car. He gave me
a plastic trash bag to sit on so I didn’t ruin my newly cleaned car!


My bike rack (and a puddle) filled with melting hail!


When I got home 90 mins later, I had welts on my shoulders/back from the hail.
There are 3 in this photo, and the one to the left was still welted up and puffy.

So what was going to be a nice long ride with 3x5 mile efforts and then just an easier “cool down” ride later in the day turned into an all around shit show. And I didn’t know if my car would be done that afternoon or not, so I put my “newly tired” bike on the trainer for an hour mid-day as well, so my training log for the day looks like this:

The 9 mile ride was the first interval and the 2 rides with the flat to and from the train,
the 13 mile ride was getting my car in the hail, and the 1 hour was the trainer ride.

Luckily I FINALLY got in a decent ride yesterday! More on that shortly.

In the meantime, NO MORE DAMN HAIL!!