Change of Plans

This morning, I was excited to do a planned brick workout with The Firefighter. I always go to his house to do those kinds of things, but this morning he came to my place. It was great to get an extra 20 minutes of sleep with no driving or loading up the car. He showed up promptly at 5:30 a.m. so that we could get our bike trainers set up in the living room to do a trainer workout for 45 minutes followed by an hour long run. The bike routine was to include a warm up, speed drills and then some steady pedaling before going out on a run. I say was - in past tense - because right when I began to strap up my shoes and pump up the alternative rock music, a loud burst of air shot out from my rear tire. This was the same rear tire that had popped a few days ago. We changed the tire as quickly as we could, knowing this workout could still be salvaged with just a shorter, more intense bike portion, when we saw this:

The black bump poking out near my left pointer finger is the tube trying to escape the tire. It was a bulbous, tumor-like bump where the tube was breaking through a hole in the tire. This pretty much put an immediate end to all of our plans. My beautiful tires I had bought the day after Thanksgiving 2009 were no more. Here is the scene of chaos as we cleaned up the bike situation while trying to decide what Option B was. By we, I mean The Firefighter cleaned up and I photographed (my bike stayed upside down in the living room for about 7 more hours).

We made a quick decision to go out on the run anyway with a little speed work. We set out into the scorching mid-90's heat with the sun high in the sky, warming up as we ran the first mile. We proceeded to do every other mile under 8 minutes, with in-between miles anywhere from 8:30 to 9 minutes. We kept each other accountable on the pace while talking about work, our crazy decision to sign up for a second Ironman within the next year, and how our wives are much better with the finances then we are. This light conversation really helped make sure we didn't overdue it in what turned into roughly a 10.3 mile run. For not planning it out, this run was a great confidence booster, as well as a strong indication of the progress that we have made so far. We got back to my house, and I planned to get new tires later in the day so we could do a bike ride the following morning.

Later in the day, I made my way to Performance Bike to fix my problem. I had previously used 700x25 sized Continental Gatorskin Ultras. I talked with the salesman and decided to go with the same tire in a 700x23 for less surface area and a faster ride. Less surface area of the tire touching the ground creates less drag and a faster ride for the same power input. I immediately counteracted this increase of speed with anti thorn tubes from Forte that weigh 265 grams in order to hopefully prevent any future popped tubes(regular tubes weigh 90 grams for this tire size).

I also talked to the salesman about my tire pump by Ascent not working very well to make a seal on my tube valves. I use tubes with a Presta Valve, and the salesman recommended using a Presta Valve Adapter. This can be screwed onto a Presta Valve to use the Schrader valve portion of your pump.

I had not yet worn out the Schrader portion of my pump, and it worked like a charm and made a perfect seal, allowing me to easily pump the new tires up.

I now keep a valve adapter with me on my bike, as well as one in the garage for morning pressure checks before riding. The Presta valves can be susceptible to bending, or in extreme cases snapping off, so I look forward to using the adapter to hopefully prevent any future tire-pumping issues. A successful workout, a new width of tire to try out, and learning a thing or two about tire valves made for a good day...even though it was a little different then I had originally planned.