The weekend!

The weekend wasn’t a total lost…but then again I didn’t have much ridding planed anyway! Saturday was a pain in the butt! I headed out early, about 6:15 a.m. and managed to get a whole 2.5 miles before I got a flat tire (the back)! I pulled into a church parking lot and changed my tub. No real biggy, but its way to early to be getting flats. Anyway, seeing how I’m so close to the house, I decided to swing back and grab a new tub for a spare. Well on the way back, my front tire goes flat!! Is someone trying to tell me something? Now the tire didn’t pop…it just went flat. Maybe I didn’t tighten the valve stem tight this morning when I pumped up my tires?! I just pulled over and put more air in the tub. Got back home grabbed a tube and pumped up both tires with my floor pump and sprayed soapy water on the tire to check for bubbles (bubbles=leak). All good! Now I can get back out on the road. I headed up to 405 and out to NASA. It’s a very grey morning, windy, moist, and just generally cruddy. I did see a whole lot of vultures out, but that was it. Maybe everyone is still asleep! I get to the backside (south end) of NASA on SR 3, when my front tire goes flat! Crap! I was planning on getting about 70 miles in this morning, but this is really starting to put a damper on the plans. I make it to mile 28 and I pull over, eat breakfast (Cliff Bar), call Carmen, and replace my tube. At this point I decided just to turn around and back track. The way back home was uneventful….no more flats! I squeaked in 65 miles and with all the flats, I was just happy to make it home! Still early, now about 10 am…..felt like a half day for me. Almost feel guilty for ONLY riding 65 miles. Sunday was a little better as far as flats but the wind damn near killed me. The wind was blowing 14 mph and gusting to 25 mph. Did that stop me….NOPE! I went down Grissom to 524, Cox Rd, 520 and over the causeway. I figured that I would just get the headwind out of the way first. Rode up Tropical trail north of 520 to SR 3. I forgot that it was a nice road! Also the tailwind was pushing me at about 25 mph. Kept that pace all the way in to NASA. The sun started to come out! Still very windy though. The vultures are still out and I found out why. There are some orange groves on the south end of the NASA property which a pack of boars are feeding on the fallen fruit. Well, boars and cars do not mix well and there were a couple of boars that were dead on the side of the road…..hence the vultures. The boars were neat to watch…must have been about 40 of them throughout that grove! Felt bad for them. All was well until I stated to head west on 405. The southerly wind was now a very strong cross wind. Riding over the causeway, I had to lean my bike into the wind to stay upright!! The wind is actually pushing my helmet to the side of my head…now that’s windy! So, I’m leaning to my left about 10 degrees to compensate for the wind and about this time, a huge bus passes by which block the wind! Not having the win pushing back on cause me to swerve to the left and almost into the bus! Scares the shit out of me! The whole thing lasted only a second and thankfully I have good reflexes!! Make it back home with no other problem. Got 45 miles in….time to mow the yard, bathe the dogs and clean my bike! What a relaxing weekend huh!