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Drat!

I was going – late, but early enough to finish if I could do better than 4h30 – out the door to ride the Estacada 100 when I felt the front wheel go *squish* when it rolled over the stoop.

Oh oh.

It was noticeably low, and, of course, soft, and when I attached the pump to it to find what pressure it was at it cheerfully told me 20psi. Well, goddamn, that kills riding a permanent today – after popping the wheel, pulling the tube, inflating it to the point where I could find the leak, checking the tire for debris (no debris, but a nice little hole in the tread that matched the tiny little nick in the tire; I must have rolled over a piece of glass on highway 30 (maybe that’s why I was slowing down on the return from Sauvie Island?) and had the tire slowly bleed air for the rest of the day), booting the tire (with duct tape; it’s not much – I should cut apart one of the USPS priority mail kevlar envelopes I’ve been saving – but it at least puts some barrier between the tube and the puncture surface), putting in a new tube, and inflating it (twice; Nomad 28s won’t fit between the arms of my caliper brakes fully inflated) it was already past 10am, and even though I’m aiming for a sub-4 100k (again; my record was 3h41 on the Snooseville populaire after the 600 last summer, and I’ve hit 3h30 thrice en passant on the Sauvie Island populaire) I’m not comfortable trying to do it under the gun.

And I can’t do it this evening, because its Halloween and an early populaire would conflict with trick or treating, and a night populaire (particularly the Estacada 100) would conflict with holiday drunks on the highway.

Damnit.

I guess I’ll put my regular clothes back on and do some errands on the central east side. Maybe go up to Food Fight! and see what they’ve got for vegan fatty spreads for bread, bread pudding, and fruitcake (I have to go up there anyway to get some more hummus from King Harvest, and Food Fight is on a busy enough street so that I have a good chance of avoiding emotional trauma while I’m doing it.)

I checked my riding, and it’s only been about 680 miles between front wheel flats now (I’ve got about 2500 miles on the front Nomad, and didn’t have a front wheel flat until somewhat over 1800 miles on it. This compares favorably with the one flat/~500 miles on the rear Nomad) which is somewhat more frequent than I like, but these tires are baller enough so that I’m willing to put up with the flats in exchange for their ride, grip, and speed.

—orc Wed Oct 31 10:59:40 2012

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