First ride back in a while and oh look, the puncture fairy!

Well, that was eventful! First ride of the year, and in truth, the first ride in ages. Steady and undemanding was the order of the day with a pretty easy 16ish mile loop, not very technical. Not too strenuous, so feels like more effort if you go singlespeed, so I did. Which now involves the new bike (to this blog) all the bits off the Carrera Fury are now on the On-One 456 Evo.
Anywhere there could be mud there was, unless there was a small flood instead but riding through water is just more fun, more grippy and much cleaner so that was fine :-)

The more observant amongst you may however have noticed a discrepancy. I said 16ish miles but Strava says 13? Well, about 12 miles in is when the puncture fairy turned up... Only a bit soft so a quick pump up and deal with it later... The puncture fairy didn't like that, they really didn't! So over the next mile the soft tear became a fully flat rear, out comes the tube and in goes the one I hastily grabbed on my way out of the door. A little too hastily as it was a 700c, and I was on 26" wheels. No matter, fitted it anyway, pumped up fine and away we... don't go.

As I grabbed the front wheel to flip the bike back, the front was flat, utterly airless. Never mind, just had some practice, this will take no time! So I appropriated my mates spare tube and popped that in. Well after removing the enormous thorn from the tyre carcass, way bigger than the one in the rear so no idea why the rear went soft first but no matter.

Well, actually yes, some matter, because the new (to me) tube was already leaking! Not had it apart to try and find out why but that tyre was thorn free, I checked it twice, I always do! So that's when I stopped Strava recording, the next mile and a half to the road was pretty interesting, uphill was just a bit sketchy, downhill was frankly hilarious! Like riding in beautiful powder apart from the jarring of rocks on rim. It was destined to be the last ride for my well worn Mud X tyres anyway, but I think it will be pretty trashed now.

Can't really afford to go tubeless on the SS bike as well but it did remind me of the BIGGEST advantage of tubeless... no thorn punctures.

Was great to be back out though :-)

I just rode 13.0 miles! Check it out on #strava