Whew, ouch. It was a perfect day down in Baltimore, the course was fast and flowy, my tires (Specialized Tracers) were hooking up well on the warm-up laps, and I was excited to line up for the UCI Elite event. The start was fast, and my plan was to not blow up too early in an hour long race, but lap times were down in the 6 minute range, so it was going to be a race against the 80% rule.
(Thanks to Dennisbike.com there is photographic evidence I at least started this thing...)
The first lap was going well, there were a few guys I had raced with before and I wanted to try and stick with them for as long as possible. Coming down the off-camber left turn after the run-up, I felt a strange ripping feel from my rear tire, like burping a tubeless, but it didn't make sense with my tubulars. Slowly, it felt like I was losing air until I was squat on my rims before the S/F straight.
Argh, didn't even make it a lap. I gingerly rode it over to the pits, and Joe loaned me his bike so I could at least keep going. The seat was far too low, but at least I was sort of moving again. Less then 20 minutes in, and 3 laps of racing and I was officially pulled. Now I really want to try another.
Still, counting the DNFs, only 2 spots down from where the race predictor had me. Next time....
Masters 35+ photos:
The first lap was going well, there were a few guys I had raced with before and I wanted to try and stick with them for as long as possible. Coming down the off-camber left turn after the run-up, I felt a strange ripping feel from my rear tire, like burping a tubeless, but it didn't make sense with my tubulars. Slowly, it felt like I was losing air until I was squat on my rims before the S/F straight.
Argh, didn't even make it a lap. I gingerly rode it over to the pits, and Joe loaned me his bike so I could at least keep going. The seat was far too low, but at least I was sort of moving again. Less then 20 minutes in, and 3 laps of racing and I was officially pulled. Now I really want to try another.
Still, counting the DNFs, only 2 spots down from where the race predictor had me. Next time....
Masters 35+ photos:
Was just reading this post and suddenly realized you had two prior ones I hadn't read yet. Congrats on the good start to the season; hopefully the rest of it goes off without any more tire issues!
ReplyDelete