Damn slow shipping
May. 18th, 2005 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleyI'm finally over my tiny, irritating cold enough to feel like riding again
...and as a nice coincidence, we're supposed to be at a company meeting in Ann Arbor at 7AM this morning. I almost always skip them along with at least half the people at work, but we got a little extra pressure to attend this month, and I'm thinking, that's about a 20 mile ride instead of my usual 10.5, so I get to ride twice as far today, plus I get paid from the start of the meeting including travel time back to the office. Win/win I figure. I've been trying to get up earlier lately anyway, an extra 30 minutes earlier and I'll have plenty of time to make it in.
So I'm up and on the road at 5:30. Ride past work and down to Jackson Rd, which quickly gets a decent bike lane which continues for the most part into AA.
So I get onto Stadium (about 16.5 out of 20 miles), and my rear tire flats, fast. I pull onto some grass and take a look. Then I realize, when I rebuilt that wheel, I went to a presta valve tube. My mini pump won't do presta. Argh.
(here's the slow shipping part)
The worst part here is that I ordered a box of goodies from Nashbar including a new pump, patch kit, and two spare tubes, over a week ago. They SHOULD have been here by now. If I had them I would have been rolling again in 10 minutes tops.
What to do. Walk, pretty much. 4 miles more to the meeting, I'd be a bit late, and PROBABLY could get a ride back to work with my bike. Or, walk 5 miles back to Meijer and buy a pump that will work.
Back to Meijer it is. I didn't really want to go to the meeting anyway. Went in, grabbed a pump off the shelf, it's the same as the one I have, look at the instructions on the back, realize that the pump I have WILL pump presta tubes, just turn the guts of the nozzle around. Doy. Put it back on the shelf.
Back outside, do the 30 second presta flipover, and try to patch the tube. Screw with it for 30 minutes. Give up when I realize there's a hole that I can't find somewhere. Put it all back together, walk the last 3 miles to work.
Well, this was actually not too bad, in retrospect. I got a 16.5 mile ride in before I flatted, with another 10.5 to come tonight after I fix the tube (or get a new one at the bike shop down the road). I found out that the ride is actually very easy; the part after where I pass work has bike lanes and is much more level; my speed went way up over my usual average, so in the future I'll be good to ride to those meetings without worrying about the route (as long as I'm prepared for flats). I can truthfully claim I *tried* to get to the meeting, but had vehicle trouble. I got a nice 6 mile walk in, OK, maybe "nice" isn't the best word for walking along Jackson Rd, but it's better than sitting in one of those damn all-company meetings. I haven't walked that far at once in many years, it was interesting, especially seeing the water tower near work through the mist, across a valley from 4 miles away, and thinking, "that looks like a long ways." But it really wasn't.
Good learning experience anyway. From now on, I'm keeping a patch kit AND a spare tube (and a boot) in the saddle bag. I usually like to patch (I hate to throw away something that I can fix) but I'm thinking the better route is to throw in a new tube, get rolling again, and patch the holed one back home where I have better facilities than a bench in front of Meijers.
And I'm still leaving at 3:30 today.
...and as a nice coincidence, we're supposed to be at a company meeting in Ann Arbor at 7AM this morning. I almost always skip them along with at least half the people at work, but we got a little extra pressure to attend this month, and I'm thinking, that's about a 20 mile ride instead of my usual 10.5, so I get to ride twice as far today, plus I get paid from the start of the meeting including travel time back to the office. Win/win I figure. I've been trying to get up earlier lately anyway, an extra 30 minutes earlier and I'll have plenty of time to make it in.
So I'm up and on the road at 5:30. Ride past work and down to Jackson Rd, which quickly gets a decent bike lane which continues for the most part into AA.
So I get onto Stadium (about 16.5 out of 20 miles), and my rear tire flats, fast. I pull onto some grass and take a look. Then I realize, when I rebuilt that wheel, I went to a presta valve tube. My mini pump won't do presta. Argh.
(here's the slow shipping part)
The worst part here is that I ordered a box of goodies from Nashbar including a new pump, patch kit, and two spare tubes, over a week ago. They SHOULD have been here by now. If I had them I would have been rolling again in 10 minutes tops.
What to do. Walk, pretty much. 4 miles more to the meeting, I'd be a bit late, and PROBABLY could get a ride back to work with my bike. Or, walk 5 miles back to Meijer and buy a pump that will work.
Back to Meijer it is. I didn't really want to go to the meeting anyway. Went in, grabbed a pump off the shelf, it's the same as the one I have, look at the instructions on the back, realize that the pump I have WILL pump presta tubes, just turn the guts of the nozzle around. Doy. Put it back on the shelf.
Back outside, do the 30 second presta flipover, and try to patch the tube. Screw with it for 30 minutes. Give up when I realize there's a hole that I can't find somewhere. Put it all back together, walk the last 3 miles to work.
Well, this was actually not too bad, in retrospect. I got a 16.5 mile ride in before I flatted, with another 10.5 to come tonight after I fix the tube (or get a new one at the bike shop down the road). I found out that the ride is actually very easy; the part after where I pass work has bike lanes and is much more level; my speed went way up over my usual average, so in the future I'll be good to ride to those meetings without worrying about the route (as long as I'm prepared for flats). I can truthfully claim I *tried* to get to the meeting, but had vehicle trouble. I got a nice 6 mile walk in, OK, maybe "nice" isn't the best word for walking along Jackson Rd, but it's better than sitting in one of those damn all-company meetings. I haven't walked that far at once in many years, it was interesting, especially seeing the water tower near work through the mist, across a valley from 4 miles away, and thinking, "that looks like a long ways." But it really wasn't.
Good learning experience anyway. From now on, I'm keeping a patch kit AND a spare tube (and a boot) in the saddle bag. I usually like to patch (I hate to throw away something that I can fix) but I'm thinking the better route is to throw in a new tube, get rolling again, and patch the holed one back home where I have better facilities than a bench in front of Meijers.
And I'm still leaving at 3:30 today.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 05:46 pm (UTC)- Even after repatching the one hole I found on the road and submersing the tube, it still went flat. Screw it, put in a new tube (after checking for sharp things)