April Fools

It all started out fine. Mike and I headed out of the house on the trusty tandem to do an easy-ish ride (he is having some knee trouble). My post today was going to be about how he won all of the town line sprints ;-). Instead, our ride ended not so nicely...

As we were coming home through Acton, we cut through the Colonial Spirits parking lot to head up Pope Road. Suddenly, I knew that we had a flat. Here is the sequence of events from here:

1. Run over small piece of glass.
2. Glass embeds in rear tire, cutting the tube and causing a flat.
3. Remove rear wheel, find glass, remove tube.
4. Take spare out of seat back, and put on wheel.
5. Spare is a 26" x 1.25 - we have 700 cc wheels...
6. Look for patch kit.
7. No patch kit in seat bag.
8. Make spare tube fit (difficult, but workable).
9. Pump up tire - doesn't hold air.
10. Pump breaks.
11. No cell phone either, and we are about 10 miles from home.
12. Ride tandem remaining 10 miles on cracked rim, including along dirt bike path ('cause it's shorter).

This was NOT a fun way to end what had been a good ride.

The lesson here (are you all listening?) is to CHECK your supplies and make sure that you have everything you need BEFORE you head out on a 50 mile ride. Also, I will ALWAYS ride with a cell phone from here on out.

Foolish on April Fool's Day....