Hello? Can You Pick Me Up?

A couple of years ago as when I started into triathlons, I rode inside on the trainer for several months during the cold winter until finally it was warm enough to ride outside.  I had not ridden my bike on the road for many years and never with the clip in shoes.  My youngest brother Paul, a three time Ironman finisher, volunteer to come up to my house one early spring morning and join me for my first outdoor ride.  We rode for about 30 km but took about 90 minutes for a painful 20 km\hr average speed.  It was good as Paul was able to give me little pointers, like clip out before getting to a stop light and things like that.

Fast forward two and half years later, today I went riding with my older brother Don.  I rode down to his place in Ajax to meet up with him as ironically he borrowed Paul's wife bike and has just started to getting into riding.  He runs, but like me, gets hurt a lot so I been bugging him to start riding in order to minimize the pounding of running on his body.  Last month he borrowed Sarah's bike (with $1,600 Mavric rims) and started tooling around.  I told him I'd ride down to his house (about 30 km away) and ride with him and Tammy would come down with the kids and pick me up later.

The ride to Don's house was pretty uneventful other than it was down hill almost all the way but into a pretty stiff head wind.  My shoulder/back was bugging me when I was in aero position.  I arrived at Don's house just after one hour and we headed out but he was complaining that the tires were low on air so we stopped and I used one of my CO2 cartilages to fill up the front tire but his back was a little low as well.  I warned him that if you ride with low air pressure in the tires you run the risk of getting a flat.  Tammy was coming down with my air pump and he could fill them up after the ride.  We headed out south to Lake Ontario and then eastward along a walking path.  We couldn't go fast as there were other people on bikes and foot so eventually we got off and went along Lakeshore Road.  I started getting tired and mentioned we should turn around and head back as Tammy would be at his house with the kids and probably didn't want to hang around for a long time.  We headed north and then west along Bailey.  Don was in front as we headed down a small hill with me charging fast when all of a sudden he jammed on the brakes and I almost ran him over.  He got a flat tire!  Unbelievable and we were so close to his house.  I called his house and Tammy had just arrived so she came over and picked us up.

Later we went to a local bike store and picked up some new inner tubes and I showed him how to change a flat tire.  What goes around, comes around.

Oh yea.  I swapped emails with coach regarding why he didn't bother calling me before Muskoka 70.3 and looks like I'll be looking for a new coach for Ironman Mont Tremblant