Saturday, August 26, 2006

Diablo Junction plus South Gate Road 32 miles

JB, Rick, and I took off from the Gate right on time. I told them I had to be home by 10 o'clock so I could take my family to the company picnic and we decided there'd be no dinking around.

I was riding half blind because I broke the prescription insert on my Bolle sunglasses and was riding with no vision correction. On Wednesday I wore my prescription bifocals but they have the little nose pad that lets wind into my eyes and that's about as bad as not being able to see anyway. So I was wearing my Bolles without the insert; I could see well enough that I wasn't being dangerous, but I didn't spot the pot holes as earlier as I might have otherwise, and I couldn't tell the difference between a squirrel and a bunny when they ran across the road.

Wildlife Encounter: A squirrel and a bunny, but I couldn't tell which was which.

The nice thing about not having the insert was that my peripheral vision was much better since I didn't have that extra frame in the way. I started thinking seriously about Lazik, but haven't convinced myself to do it yet. And since my insert prescription is "single vision" it's easier to read my computer and HRM without them. Of course it's about impossible to read any road signs but I could practically ride this ride blindfolded.

JB did a couple of intervals and then complained about them. He got a bit ahead of Rick and me but then he faded and Rick attacked. I stayed with Rick for a while and then he gapped me but I maintained the gap to about 30 seconds and JB faded even more. So 44m to Junction and then we went down the Easy Side and through the residential areas back to Walnut Creek.

Back at home, I pulled down my swarm of tubes that needed to be patched. A Rema patch kit comes with 6 circle patches and 1 rectangular patch and I like to use them all at once so the glue doesn't get dried up. So I had six road tubes and one MTB tube and I got to work. My daughter helped me find a couple of leaks with the under water detection method, she was really pleased with herself about that - made me proud too. The MTB tube was too far gone... the rubber was old and cracked so we junked that one. Out of the six road tubes I got good patches on five of them and that's better than I usually do. One of those five though had a second leak so I used the big rectangular patch on it and got that one patched, but then there was another leak between the two patches so I gave up on that one too. So out of seven tubes, I got four reusable ones and some quality time with the kid.

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