dreadedmonkeygod . net

Y'know how you read "tips" on whatever subject, and you just know that things are never going to work out that neatly? You read, "If you spill red wine on you, dab it with some soda water..." and you realize that nobody you know has soda water in the house.

An age-old mountain biking tip says that in the event that the sidewall of your tire gets sliced by rocks, you can use an empty snack wrapper as a boot.

Whenever I read that, I think that:

1. In years of mountain biking, I've never had my sidewall cut through.
2. I often don't carry snacks. So it's kind of hit and miss whether I'll have anything to use as a boot.
3. That's not really going to work, right?

Well, today, my sidewall got cut by... something. No idea what. But I looked down, and the inner tube was poking through the hole, making a little wart the side of my tire.

Sure enough, I had an empty Gu wrapper in my jersey pocket. I let some air out of the tube, put the Gu wrapper inside the tire, behind the hole, and put everything back together.

It worked perfectly. I got home without further incident. (Which was good, because my legs were cooked.)

Tapo Cyn, Chivo, Marr Ranch Rd.

The fork is rad. Tuned in perfectly.

Need new tires, obviously.

I lost an hour of time on this ride checking the map, and resting. I really need to figure out a way that I can have the GPS map visible while I'm riding, instead of having to stop and check my iPhone. It felt like it just took a minute each time, but checking at every intersection adds up.

The hour spent resting/checking the map also made me aware of how tiring it is not to know quite how long a climb is going to be, or when I have a chance to rest coming up. Having the map available would help with that too.