Loose Bolts are Bad

(All apologies to the fail blog for a little bit of plagiarism)

Following the stunning feat of not dying in Terlingua last weekend, I thought I’d do some light biking around Austin. Riggggggggght.

Sat: Walnut Creek’s BMX loop has some great little jumps on it. Nothing serious, but good for some fun – until you realize that you neglected to throughly tighten the bolts on the stem, causing a sudden shift downward in the spiffy new riser bars. Suddenly I get to switch from mountain biking to hurdles as I try and clear myself from the tumbling chaos that once was my proud bicycle. I would have stuck the landing too, if my feet weren’t so freakishly large. See the picture above for an object lesson in proper torque.

Sun: Given Saturday’s shortcomings, I figured road biking might be a better Sunday option. Flats on a road bike are to be expected. The first one was no big deal, we found some shade, put in a new tube, and moved on. The second one was a little alarming. Standing on the side of 360 with traffic raging by, putting our last spare tube in my bike, we’d pretty much resolved to cut the ride short, given the craptasticness of things so far. On the record breaking third flat, not 20 yards down the road, I just had to sit there and try not to throw my bike down the hill, while Germ called in an Rob-e-vac.