# Yesterdays ride - hills and punctures



## Nebulous (11 Jun 2012)

My weakness is hills, and most of my routes tend to avoid them. I do a few, but much prefer powering along on the flat. Yesterday I was going to meet my family at a local show, so point-to-point instead of a circuit, and decided to tackle some hills.

I set off determined not to do any Strava segments, and managed to pretend the first two didn't exist, but then hammered the next 3 getting a KOM, on a descent rather than a hill! 

It would appear that strava bagging or interval sessions really don't work if you are going to be climbing hills. 4th day in a row exercising, well within my usual mileage, and I felt beat. Thankfully, what goes up must come down, and I reached a stretch with a long slow gradual decline, when I noticed my front tyre was going soft.

I pulled into the first safe place I could find, it still had some air in it, but was making a self-satisfied hiss. I removed the wheel, removed the tyre, put in my spare tube and tried to pump it up with my pocket rocket, with no success. I haven't had a puncture on the road bike in a year (really) and had never used the pump, having lost my old one. I thought the pump was broken. Just then two guys were passing on bikes going the opposite way, stopped to help and couldn't have been nicer. 

One tried his pump, the other donated a CO2 cylinder, when we decided my spare tube was also gone. Then they gave me a tube. Somehow we, probably me, managed to do something to the valve, but it was sealed and holding, so I set off to admonitions to change it as soon as possible. Despite a 45 minute or so break my legs were still spent and I had a grim final 10 miles or so, feeling quite cold in addition to my tiredness.

I'm sure I never thanked them properly, I don't think I even said who I was, I didn't have any cash to pay for their tube or CO2, but if you were one of the two chaps from Alford who helped a stranded numpty on Sunday, then thanks very much.I really appreciated it, despite being a bit withdrawn and reticent.

58 miles, 1131 metres of climbing, knackered legs and feeling a bit inadequate and complacent because of my recent good luck, puncturewise. A rest day today, and off to Edinburgh Bike to see if they still have half-price on tubes.

I still have that KOM though!


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