On Biking

XXXVI

2024.03.03

Below, you’ll find trials and tribulations to rival Homer’s Odyssey.

Boys who barely know how to cycle go into one end of the journey—out the other end comes men who can change a flat bike tire like professionals.

Asynchronous Ironman

This post was originally going to be about an asynchronous triathlon that Bobby and I attempted over the course of last week. We kicked it off with the marathon Sunday, followed by a 2.4 mile open water swim on Friday. Then, yesterday, we were aiming for a 112 mile bike ride. That’s right, we were going for Ironman distances spread out across the week.

Each leg of the journey is post worthy on its own, but yesterday took the crown. A few angry dogs, 6 flat tires, an unsafe town on the Georgia/Atlanta border, a funeral procession, and a police station… and, unfortunately, only about 65 miles of biking, according to Bobby’s apple watch. 

What went wrong? 

The better question is what didn’t.

Biking

Coming off of a successful marathon and swim, the bike ride was not only what I was least prepared for, but it was also what I underestimated the most; bad combo.

Running I had been training for, and I swam for 7 years in middle and highschool. Biking, I’ve done, but, apparently, I’ve been doing it utterly wrong. 

We rented a couple road bikes, nice units, and took off on the Silver Comet Trail around 7:15 am on Saturday. It started great, I was cooking it at a 13-14 miles pace. We figured it would take us 8-10 hours to get almost to Alabama and back to clock in those 112 miles. 

Bobby warned me that I shouldn’t be running in high gear the whole time, but I thought my strength would carry. He had the wisdom to ask a biker we kept running into, Eric. 

Eric told me I was turning an endurance sport into a strength sport and would have a hard time finishing. Unfortunately, this conversation was about 2 hours in. 

I always have had a practice of cranking a bike up to the highest gear and just pumping it. Turns out, for 112 miles, you should probably be going at least 90 rpms, not around 40. Oops. 

So, I started to feel it, even after I switched into lower gear and swapped strength for speed. 

The Flats

My poor decisions became the least of our problems, though. Around mile 40, I came upon Bobby. The poor bastard had our first flat! He had coasted over a piece of glass. 

I got out and started trying to help, but both of us were pretty inexperienced as far as replacing a flat goes. Thankfully, Eric from earlier came to the rescue and gave us an in person demo of how to change an inner tube. God, would it come in handy. 

So, we took off again, and boy was I feeling it. After a quick break at the Cedartown Welcome Center near the Alabama border, I hit a wall. I was dragging. 

Around mile 52, I took a walking break to eat a snack. Bobby caught up to me and we chatted. I took back off, the 55 mile turning point in sight. Before I could make it, he shot me a call— he had another flat. 

I turned around. 

The Second Flat

It was the same wheel, so this time, we double checked the inside of the tire to make sure we didn’t miss anything before we installed a new inner tube.

Another friendly biker came along and helped us out. By the end of the reinstall, he had given us a third inner-tube as a back up, because we only had two with us when we started the journey, which meant we would’ve had zero. 

We turned around there; we figured we’d rather do the extra few miles when we got back to the starting point than venturing out further towards Alabama. 

And boy, was I dying. No matter how hard I pedaled, I could not keep up with Bobby. I switched all the way down to the lowest gear on the flattest of land and it felt like I was walking. 

I caught up to him at the Cedartown Welcome Center. When I got there, a few bikers told me I was riding on a flat back tire.

Thus, the sheer wall I had hit… I can’t be certain, but based on how I felt when I got back on a bike with a full tire, I’m pretty sure I had been riding on a flat for 10 miles, not long after Bobby’s first flat.

I set into replacing the inner-tube while Bobby went to Walmart for more resources. And boy, did he have a journey.

Bobby’s Interlude

What follows is a second hand account of Bobby’s attempt to get to a Walmart and back. It should’ve been a relatively trivial feat, he had a bike and it was only three miles. Needless to say, it wasn’t.

Maybe a mile after he took off, he ran into a funeral procession down the middle of a road. He saw and opening and the poor bastard biked through it. A few minutes later, as he was peddling along, a cop “pulled him over” (I’m not sure how that works when you’re on a pedal bike).

In short, it was for cutting off the funeral procession. After the cop ran Bobby’s license, he said, “I’m not sure what you do up in Ohio, but cutting off a funeral procession ain’t the sort of thing we do here…” and let him go. 

Bobby proceeded to Walmart, collecting the goods, including lights to get back after dark, three more inner tubes, a hand pump, and co2 to pump the any tires up.

Almost immediately after leaving Walmart… he had another flat.

He asked a couple people for rides–a lady said yes, but then followed it up by telling him that her dog that was in the car would certainly bite him. So, she got her Pops who was in the store, an 80ish year old man, who gladly would take Bobby. 

They had numerous detours, including Pops trying to give a bunch of cardboard to a store owner, Pops giving Bobby a tour of the town, cemetery and all, and Pops, when Bobby was a tenth of a mile away from the Welcome Center, telling Bobby that he needed to go to Kroger to give his daughter his credit card. Of course, at that point, Bobby thanked Pops and got the hell out of the vehicle.

The Final Hill

Bobby got back, maybe an hour after he left, giving me plenty of time to stretch. We replaced his tire and were ready to take off. We were prepared for the long haul ahead of us. We were ready to win. 

So, we start biking.

Not five miles later, as we were climbing a massive hill on the outside of Cedartown, I notice Bobby’s back was flat. We both got off to repair it… but we realized we left the lever tool needed to finish the job at the Welcome Center.

I start swapping the tire, and Bobby took my bike back to grab the levers. 

At this point, I was lighting fast and swapping tires. I just needed the lever to finish getting the second bead in and we’d be ready to go. So, I got more time to stretch and called Adi about some front end fixes we were working on. 

I finally notice Bobby returning… but he was walking the bike up the hill. Uh-Oh. 

There was massive nail sticking out of my front tire. 

Cerberus

At that point, we called it. It was closing in on 4:30 pm by then, we were six flats in, and burning daylight.

I call the bike shop and the owner, Jeff, bless his heart, said he’ll drive out to rescue us. The game wasn’t over, though. We had about an hour and half til he’d arrive.

As mentioned, Cedartown isn’t exactly the nicest of towns, so we didn’t really know what to do. We were in the country, sort of, but still not super accessible by car and were only a brief walk from some scary looking homes on one side and low income housing projects on the other. We had high ground, but not much else.

To make matters worse, Bobby had been attacked by two dogs coming to and from the Welcome Center. 

We decided the best course of action would be to sit in front of the police station, which we could get to before dark. It would be safer and logistically easier for Jeff to collect us. 

So, we started our trek. We saw the dog’s that Bobby had mentioned still in front of a house, so we got off the Silver Comet Trail and got on the actual Silver Comet Rail, which put about an extra 20 feet of brush and trees between us and Cerberus and his pup. 

Still, the hellhound barked and approached, following us along the tree line! Now, there were three dogs somehow, and the third one was bigger, but thankfully the least interested.

The brush got as thin as 5 feet at one point and we thought one of the dogs might take the gap as a chance to lunge, but we stared them down with wild abandon. I explained to Bobby that when you’re ready to die, your last resort defense mechanism is staring living things dead in the eyes. Unless they’re more ready to die, they’ll back down. 

We made it to the police station at last, and around 6pm, Jeff picked us up.

The Moral of the Story

My biggest mistake was continuing to power through when I hit a wall without checking to see if maybe an external factor had gone wrong.  

That’s not to say I shouldn’t have kept going if I really was that tired, that’s just to say I could’ve done a better job of ascribing causality to the problem. I was aware of my over-indexing on high gear at the start, so I thought that was the source of the problem. I was clearly missing the information about the flat and doing nothing to collect it. 

Moreover, reflecting, we were so caught up in the absurdity of the situation that we got sloppy. We did not verify that tires three, four, or five were actually punctured, so there’s a non zero chance that one or two of those were simply flat. In line with that, we left the tire levers at the Welcome Center. You still have to keep good form, even when under absurd pressures.

Overall, the experience gave me a chance to make some quick strategic decisions when the physical risks were non zero; going to the police station was probably my best call of the day.

Otherwise, just generally speaking, I think we proved that Murphy’s Law is real. 

It doesn’t matter how much goes wrong, though. All that matters is that you stay calm and keep good form.

Three years ago, I probably would’ve been freaking out after the first flat.

Sure, I wasn’t happy by flat six, but I’m proud that I was still able to make mostly pretty good decisions.

Less slop next time.

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