Ridelog - flats

Man, flat tires are frustrating. I got a new set of tires and have enjoyed about 1400 miles with no flats. I thought I'd found the wonderdrug. Unfortunately, the tires weren't the cure-all I was looking for. Yesterday, about 15 miles into a group ride we hit a stretch of gravel. Not my usual terrain, but I've ridden on it before. I don't know why, but this gravel was harder to navigate than usual. Anyway, 3 of us flatted, and I double flatted. I put in my new tube, and patched the other, but the patch didn't hold. My second patch attempt looked to work after filling it up with CO2, but then the tube exploded before I even got on the bike. I guess I pinched it. meh.

Fortunately, Pamela came to the rescue and gave me a ride back home. I think I'm going to start carrying 3 new tubes at all times.. my saddle bag is big enough.

Lessons of the day:
1. buy some gatorskins at earliest financial convenience.
Tips from Naveen:
2. frame pumps rule.
3. carrying 4 water bottles isn't lame.

In other riding news, I've increased my long rides to 60-ish miles. I've also been doing most of my riding in zone 1 in attempts to drop some weight. I've not done any racing since the last post, but I think I'm going to do the Firecracker 50 this weekend, and hopefully a few more in coming months if my entry fee money holds out.

I managed to break my front dérailleur somehow. I've been using it broken for the past two weeks, and it gets by, but every so often it dumps the chain. I ordered a replacement Rival piece from ebay for $5. Hopefully it will get here today and go on tomorrow.
I've also got my mountain bike assembled. It's basically all the parts from a '99 GT XCR4000 I got at goodwill for $25 migrated to a 1993 GT RTS frame and Rockshox Tora 318 fork. With all the wet weather lately, I've not had a chance to go trail riding, but I am pretty stoked about the bike in general despite the fact that it's pretty ancient.