Team Miyata and the Hareem

Some teammates and I rode my favorite Highway 52 loop ride today. I like this route a lot because it's relatively short at 20+ miles but there is some climbing to go along with it. Several parts of the route are very beautiful, particularly the part where we ride through the valley of Mission Trails park.

Here is a Google Earth shot showing the rolling climb along the Highway 52 bike path turning into Mission Trails Regional Park.

















I rode my newish 1985 Team Miyata vintage bike. It's beauty. It was a top of the line production bike in it's heyday. It rides like a dream. The only complication is that it comes with tubular tire rims. This is an older style racing set up. The tubular tires fit directly on the rim, there is no inner tube. There are several advantages to them. Supposedly they are more resistant to flats as you eliminate the "pinch" flat where inner tube of a standard clincher tire pinches the inner tube after hitting a bump. They are also lighter and the ride quality is much smoother. The big disadvantage is that the tires need to be glued to the rim! This is a labor intensive and messy process that takes a few days to get right. You first have to stretch the tire on the rim for a couple of days, then apply the glue to the rim and tire during several steps, before finally mounting the tire. Then you pump it up to high pressure and let it set for 24 hours.

I was having a spectacular ride with this surprisenly agile bike, when I flatted! Horror of horrors. I had picked up a largish peice of glass and it had worked its way through the tire. First time out and pssssshhh. Damn. I had a spare tire but no glue. It took me a good five minutes to get the flat off the rim as I had to peel it away because I had done such a good job gluing it on. I quickly put the new one on, pumped it up and rode on. The look of confusion on my teammates face was pretty funny. None of them had ever seen a tire like that before. I rode the rest of the ride very gingerly making sure to not take any sharp turns fearing the tire would roll off the rim. It was fine.

In marked contrast to yesterday's ride, today's ride with with all women! All day, I heard jokes about me and my harem (Kim, Lynn, Lori, Natalie, Tonya). Couldn't get any of the to call me, Sultan, though :(

3/4 of the way back, Kim got a flat and I did my manly duty and changed it for her. Hmm, the real reason, they kept me around was now apparent. Looks like more glass. Kim's tires are pretty beat up and it was time for new ones anyway. A few more hills and we wrap up. Totals were

21 Miles
1680 feet of climbing.