Feeling flat

Today's intended long ride turned out to be more of an adventure than predicted. Mistake #1 was that I only wore a single layer long sleeve top - the wind and air temperature conspired to make me bloody cold the whole time the sun wasn't shining. We made our way up the freeway, along South Perth (pausing for shelter at Mends St.) across to east perth and over the hill because of flooded paths. From there we went up to Garret Rd bridge where disaster #1 struck. Sas got a flat (mistake #2 - no bike pump on board), so we headed up to the BP on GE highway to change the tube. Turns out you need an adapter to inflate tyres from garage air hose - and they had no knowledge of any nearby bike shops. Fortunately I got a text from Kim saying she was having coffee at Trish's after her morning long run ; it was about a 1.5km walk to there but she did have a bike pump (and coffee!).

The tyre was duly changed and after a bit of a break we headed off again. We had barely been going for 10 minutes when disaster #2 struck - another flat ! Either we hadn't got all the glass out from puncture #1 or more was picked up on the footpath. There was a bit around... unfortunately we were now too far from trish so we put in a SOS call to Mr Sas, who duly arrived an (cold and windy) hour later with a rescue package - new tire, inner tube and pump.

We set off again and got to Cobalt for much needed sustenance - a muffin and large hot coffee. Unfortunately it was getting late so we had to cut our losses and head home from there - 45km in about 6 hours... lessons learned.