I am feeling pretty good, all things considered. I'll be quite honest in that yesterday was a mostly miserable day. It was bad enough that I got a late start and the heat and sun had already intensified, and 25 miles into my day I flatted out. The clincher (no pun intended) was that my flat kit turned out to be unreliable and I couldn't really repair the inner tube. I had apparently used up all of the glue that comes with the patch kit, so the best I could do was to use the pressure of the tire to hold the patch in place. This meant a slow leak that lasted the rest of the ride. Couple this with the fact that small hand pumps really only inflate to about 40 psi max, and I had myself quite a long day. Ride 25 minutes, get off, pump till my arm burned, ride 25 more minutes, repeat. I managed once to use an air compressor at a gas station to get the pressure up to about 75, but this lasted only a few minutes and didn't prove worth the trouble. The window of ridable pressure diminished throughout the day, and soon I found myself reinflating every 10-15 minutes. It tooke me over 7 hours door-to-door, even though my average speed never dipped below 18 or so. Ugh. 85 frustrating miles. Cursing myself the entire way for being so poorly prepared. Lesson learned.
Today it's just a mellow 10 miles to and from work. Clocked 250 miles last week, right on schedule. I'll be surprised if I see that many this week, but it'll be over 200 for sure.
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