A Saturday from Hell

I had been planning on going to cycle festival at Bonner Park, but my cycle-karma must have been running low because the Bike Gods conspired to keep me from ever getting there.

I started making my way to the park around 1.30. Heading through downtown one of my back spokes snapped and wrapped itself around the hub. So I walked it five blocks to Hellgate Cyclery and they spent 30 minutes replacing the spoke and truing the wheel. It this point its about 2.15.

So I was on my way again, but what I hadn't noticed was that when the spoke broke it made a small puncture in the tube, small enough that air wasn't leaking out normally, but as soon as my weight was on the back tire, it went flat within a few minutes.

So, back to my place for a patch job. Another 20 minutes I was back home and 30 after that I had the tube patched and wheel back on. And off I went for one more attempt. The patch didn't hold though, and within 10 minutes the tire was again riding on the rim. By now its almost 3.00.

Back home for a new tube this time and another 30 minutes of work. At which point the cycle festival was basically over, I would have caught the last 5-10 minutes, but at this point I was so frustrated with how the day had gone that I just threw myself on the couch.

That evening I rode out to see a friend perform in a musical, he was playing the drums for the show. It was a five mile ride to the play which took about 30 minutes mostly because the wind was right in my face the whole time. On the way home in the dark around 9.00, I had another spell of bad luck as I hit a sizable pothole I hadn't seen coming, and once again got a flat.

From there I started walking, and luckily Ashley called and offered to give me a ride. So after three weeks of not using a car, I accepted the ride after the day I had.

Week Three Statistics

Miles Biked: 69.13
Miles Walked: 4.5
Gallons saved: 4.602
CO2 not emitted: 28.8997 Ibs

Sunday's Quote

By the eighteenth century, theories of the city had developed the now common circulatory model... Adam Smith was among the first to view people, ideas, commodities, and wealth as elements that flow and exchange. Streets were seen as arteries, a usage still to be heard, and people or vehicles conducted without cease from place to place.

Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City