Mt. Lemmon Ride 7.22.07 - Blown Tire

Exciting ride today. We planned to go up 8 miles from the base which is 3 further than I have ever gone. We got off to a late start and 1 guy had a flat on the approach to the mountain and the 4 of us didn't actually start climbing until 6:25. We missed a guy we were going to hook up with at the base but apparently he did the same ride on his own.

Knowing this was going to be further than past rides I went more slowly on the first couple of miles and I felt pretty comfortable throughout. This was the first time I've taken my new bike up the mountain and I loved it. The last bike only had 2 gear choices in the front and it was great having a whole new range on the 3rd (smallest) ring. I tried hard to stay off the easiest gear to keep that for 'the hard parts' but that ended up frankly being most of the way. I wound up stopping a little short of mile 8 at the Bug Trail parking lot. Like a donkey I missed getting out of my pedals and fell and got a booboo on my elbow. I am a dork.

Coming down was alot of fun until it wasn't. I started last and quickly caught up to the gang finally getting onto the big gear and really cranking along. The views descending were truly incredible and for some reason I had my first real 'oh sh**' moment coming around a curve and staring into an abyss of a canyon. It felt like I was a million miles up.

Chill and I set a pretty good pace and according to the little GPS machine we peaked at 40.7 mph until I hit a rock. Apparently going about 36 mph I hit something with my back tire and knocked a chunk out as you can see below.


click the tire for a blow up of the blow up



Having never blown a tire at speed before I instinctively grabbed both breaks too hard and then my front tube popped. I fishtailed a little but managed to get it under control and amazingly my heart rate barely moved. Once I got stopped all the adrenaline kinda left me with the shakes but luckily in the moment I basically stayed cool. One of the guys was kind enough to ride down and get a truck to come get me because there was no way to repair the tire. I was annoyed I didn't get to finish the ride, all that climbing and then to miss out on the run down the mountain sucks.

MotionBased GPS Data:

7/22/07 Mt. Lemon Ride (Climb)
7/22/07 Mt. Lemon Ride (Descent - Blown Tire)

Week	Bike Miles	Run Miles	Swim Miles	Basketball Hours
1 (7/16 - 7/22)	40	0	0	2
2 (7/23 - 7/29)
Total	40			2