b+ radsport: North West

My friend and teammate, Mike Roecklein, stepped outside his warm and sunny comfort zone of Southern California for some business in our fair city of Seattle. During his stay we made sure to include a couple training rides, one in particular included the classic 55 mile Lake Washington loop (counter clockwise). I've completed this ride a dozen times before and not once have I encountered a mechanical mishap (lucky I know). Wednesday just wasn't our day. My water bottle popped out of the holder on a decent and was ran over by a Benz, then Mikes seat post mounted holder failed and dropped both of his bottles...one of which was ran over. I then was confronted with glass penetration for rear flat #1, changed the tube hand pumped it and delt with it until Bellevue where we found Gregg's Cycles. Largest bike shop ever. We re-upped on supplies and off we went. As we started our climb out of downtown Kirkland, Mike managed to find a nail to puncture his rear tire. Luckily we were prepared due to my initial flat, because 48mm valves don't fit in 70mm carbon rims. All interesting fails aside. I had a lot of fun on this ride. It truly makes a difference when you're not going it alone. Thanks for the good company and words of wisdom Mike.