Yesterday I rode 135.5 miles.  I’m not really sure why.  I didn’t start out to do that.  I was planning on doing a long ride, but not nearly 7 hours.

I think it is good to do pretty long rides every once in a while.  For a couple reasons.  One, to reset your biological clock.  For some reason, every time I ride all day, I feel pretty good the next day.  I have no idea why that is.  The 2nd reason is it is nice knowing, mentally, that you have it in you to do longer mileage.

I got a question on Strava about what my longest day has been.  It would have to be in a race, quite a while ago.  I’ve done a lot of 160 miles races, plus riding there and back, so the mileage is pretty big.  But, the time is shorter.  a 160 mile race a 26 mph, is only 6 hours.  So, 7 hours is long.

Yesterday I kind of did two rides.  I rode 82 mile, then came back to meet up with the group ride.  The problem was the group ride was just Catherine and Bill.  Bill decided to go ride on his own, so I ended up just pulling Catherine around for over 50 miles.  It was windy, so I’m sure she got a workout.  I had a 20.2 mph average after 6 hours, but it dropped to 19.7 by the end, after running Tucker some.

I’m not normally a big mileage guy.  But I seem to be doing more recently.  I think I’m just enjoying riding my bike more now.

I changed the differential fluid in the diesel van.   I hate the smell of the gear oil in that.  The synthetic additive more.   It is lucky that it doesn’t have to be done that often. I also changed the regular oil.  I only use synthetic.  It takes 15 quarts.  With the filter, it is over $100 worth of oil. Dang.

I have to take Trudi back to the airport today.   She is flying to Northern California to pack the van and then head south to San Diego for the start of the Tour of California.  That time flew.  She is sort of on the right time now, but California is two hours earlier, so she’ll be off, since she is getting up at 5 to 6 am now.

Okay, there are no races around here this weekend.  I’ll have to look at a schedule and try to figure out what I’m doing the next month.

I flatted twice in the first couple hours and had to go to Sunflower Bike Shop in Lawrence to restock.

I moved two turtles yesterday out of the road. This box turtle, then a green turtle later.

The gears in the differential were pretty black, but the gear oil was super clear. I’m not why that was.

Tucker is a big boy now. He still loves to point butterflies though.

I had a ton of flats recently.  Both racing and training.  That is the way it has always seemed to go my whole life.  I won’t flat for ages, the I’ll flat a bunch in a row.  It doesn’t make sense.

I think the tubes and tubular tires aren’t made as well as they used to be.  For sure the tubes. You can get a batch of bad tubes and flat continually until you realize they are shit.

I’m hoping tubular tires are different.  I pretty much only race on Vittoria sewups.  The reason for this is that I know them well and thus, predictable.  Especially in the rain.

But the last year I’ve had a few really bad Vittorias.  I got a bunch of cyclocross tires that all had bad valve stems. Not really bad valve stems, but where they attached to the tubes, was flawed. Then at Joe Martin, the same thing.  A brand new Vittoria flatted in the final corner of a long road race and the only thing the matter with it was that it was leaking air at the valve stem. That is unacceptable.

I’ve already written a post on floor pumps.  It is easy to get frustrated with floor pumps.  Just when you think you have a good one, it isn’t.  I good floor pump is a very important part of the happiness of cycling, in my opinion.

I need to get another hand pump.  A real frame pump.  Both Bill and my brother carry full size frame pumps and when I flat, and use them, I always think to myself that I need to get a nice frame pump.  I’m not even sure who makes them anymore.

I used to have some awesome Silca pumps, sometimes painted to match my frame, by Joe Bell.  I haven’t had a good Silca pump for a long time.  I had a pretty good Zefal frame pump, but it lacked the nostalgia of my Silcas.

Anyway, I hope I’ve gotten this streak of flats out of my system.  I’m going to be doing some MTB racing and such, and flatting with latex in your tires is a mess.  Way worse than changing a tube on the road.

This is a photo of Alan McCormick’s Schwinn Paramount. We had matching Silca pumps painted with the frames. I wonder how many of those are around anymore?

A SIlca frame pump with a steel campy head is about the best you can still do. Even thought the pumps are just plastic, they work great.

Tucker gets into pretty weird positions when he is sleeping.