back in the saddle again

universe: 3
dan: 1

it's finally gotten a bit warmer and now that we've switched to daylight savings time, there's some sun in the evening. i've been talking about getting back into riding my bicycle to work for a few weeks now, but hadn't yet. i'd been hoping to get some shorter rides in first but when i realized that was not likely to happen i decided to just suck it up and ride in on friday. let's just say that it could have gone worse, but it could have gone a lot better too.

laura decided to ride in friday as well, so we left the house and rode together for about 3.5 miles until it was time to part ways. so far so good. after laura split off i picked up the pace. i made it across the wilson bridge and up the giant hill in record slow time, sucking wind the whole way, then crossed the beltway into oxon hill farm park road, and that's where things started going downhill. i managed to run over a shard of glass which cut a nice gash in my tire and shredded my tube (point universe). luckily, i had my last spare tube in my backpack. no problem right, except i broke the tab on the bracket for my frame pump and had to fight with that before i could inflate my new tube (point universe). 10 minutes later and i was back on the trail. made it to work, showered and enjoyed a tasty bagel. the one bright note on the way in, no naked coworkers in the locker room (point dan).

the real reason i wanted to get some rides in before riding to work was the ride home. i had no real worries about getting in. it was the sore butt that i was hoping to avoid on the way home. and those fears were well warranted when i got back on the bike at the end of the day. it hurt, but not as much as picking up the phone to call my wife to come rescue me when i got the 2nd flat tire of the day (point universe) about half way home. steel bands in the cut tire finally made their way into the new tube and ruined it as well.

two michelin city 700x32 with "protek plus", whatever that is and enough tubes to last me about three years (assuming less than two flats per day) are on order from treefortbikes.com.