Nov 16 - an aborted ride

12 miles.  That's it.  I was riding along and felt wind on my leg; looked down and sure enough, the rear tire was going flat.  Oh well.  We've been here before.

Taking the tire off, there was a good gash.  So much for that tire.  It had been used but still had a lot of life in in ... no more.  I got out a tire boot, put in a tube, pumped it up and ... it didn't pump up. 

At first I thought that I had a bum tube but I went through 4 tubes with basically the same result -- would pump partly up and then lose air.  I changed over to my spare tire and had the same result, twice.  I tried patching a tube with the quick patches and same result. 

My problem seemed to be the tire / rim combination.  I have obviously changed tires on these rims before but they were soooo tight that I was pinching the tube using the tire levers. I broke two tire levers.  For a long time I couldn't even get the tire off at one point.   Even though I knew that pinching was likely the problem, I couldn't get beyond that. 


I gave up.  Surely if I'd taken my time, done a proper patching job, I could have gotten a tire installed without pinching the tube but not there by the side of the road, not that day.

I must have been there for an hour.  I went to call Sandy.  My cell phone wasn't working.  It was that kind of day.  I removed the battery and let it reboot, then called her, packed stuff onto the bike and started walking in the direction of home. 

At home, I patched a tube and installed it.  No problem.  Hmmm.  It just wasn't my day to ride.  I'd bought a large package of tire tubes thinking that I might try and do some patching, so I patched 5 more tubes (I had been saving a few).  I'll carry some of these with me next time, along with a new tube of course and, perhaps most important, a little can of patience.

I did a few minor things at the house, since I was there.  I moved the handle on the wine cooler to the other side.  The beeping drove Abby crazy.  I disconnected the existing security system -- what a mess !.  It has a million wires coming into it -- one for every door and window in the place.  I was reluctant to simply cut all this stuff so I untangled most of it and fed the entire bundle back through the hole in the back of the unit (about 14" square) and got it off the wall.  I left the wireless adapter, which I can probably take down, the siren, which I will connect to the new one and the cellular adapter, which is an interesting thing for which I paid a lot of money.  I don't know if "My Alarm Center" (used to be called ADP) will want that back.  Apparently even with a new installation, they own the cellular connector.  It made me wonder whether I would have been able to use that thing had I opted to stay with MAC.

I hunted around to find out how I would connect a new alarm panel in that location because there isn't a receptacle there.  It was getting its power from a wire coming out of the wall so I figured that there was a transformer buried inside a wall somewhere.  Then something clicked and I remembered where there was a transformer plugged in, went there and sure enough, two transformers.  One had been added for the cellular when that was installed and they both connected to the four leads coming out of that wire.  That means that I'll be able to put the new transformer in the same location and hook it up the same way ... great stuff !

I'll have to fax the cancellation into MAC in the next day or two.  The new system has already been shipped.

What else ... not much.  It did start to rain later so abandoning my ride was a smart thing.  I'd have gotten wet.  I might have made it back before the rain got heavy without the flat but not after spending so much time by the side of the road.

We had chicken breasts for dinner and sweet potatoes -- both on the grill -- and roasted broccoli, all good as usual.

I'm getting into "The Good Wife", watching it on Amazon.  Sandy's way ahead of me on this one, already into season five.  We're also watching season nine of Law and Order, that I'd purchased on DVD.  Netflix only went to season eight.  I've got a couple more episodes of season three of Warehouse 13 to watch, but it's pretty funky.

Jason et al are coming over from Orlando today; not sure what time they'll get here but perhaps in time for Brunch at SYC.  I'm not sure when they're heading north; the weather is certainly better here than there !

Today ... Mass at 7am; perhaps a thing or two around here before Jason arrives.  We'll have to see what they're interested in doing after that.  I've been "man about the house" too much lately.

Onward !