Walking sucks.

So I am going on vacation tomorrow and thought it would be great to get a ride in before I leave for now riding for a week. The weather was perfect at 6 am; we had a hard rain last night so I wanted to lay down the first tracks out at Hawes and was lucky enough to make that happen.

The trails actually get better in the rain as the soil is decomposed granite. Aside form washouts that will need to be repaired this winter it was amazing. This has been the wettest monsoon season in 12 years and the tenth wettest in recorded history, great for us, bad for trails. A little work through and it will be good as new.

My ride was spoiled though because when I got the farthest out I tore a side wall on the front tire and nearly lost it over the bars. Thankfully I have the reflexes of a cat and made the leap over the top before I went down. However this did mean I had to make the long walk back to the car because there was no fixing the tire. With the rain it was amazingly humid and the water just flows right off my bald head into the eyes. There is just something very wrong about walking a bike. I felt like such a hiker, I even had thoughts of going to REI and buying some kaki cargo shorts.

Eventually I got to pavement and just rode the flat tire down the hill to my car. It’s hard to turn on a flat though. What’s life without a little of the unexpected?