Encircling Lightening

It is pretty common to hear someone say "luckily, I got home just in time to miss the storm".

Last night, I was lucky to get caught in it.

I almost didn't. I was riding home and decided, for no apparent reason, to continue going north on Lamar. As I approached I35, I got a call asking me if I was coming to the Wednesday Urban Exploration ride. Typically, I don't get out of the 'burbs in time, but it was running late and they hadn't left. I met the guys on Southwest Boulevard and a great ride ensued.

We made a loop through some cool areas in Argentine and Armourdale in KCK as the sky grew ominous. On my way down Lamar, I had heard that Leavenworth County was experiencing some pretty gnarly weather and we could see the looming darkness approach as we made our way through the interesting areas of these neighborhoods.

On State Ave, we stopped at El Taconazo, a tasty joint that is run by Mexicans for Mexicans. Walking in is like a throwback to the days of segregation. You are very welcome there, but you get strange looks from the patrons surprised to see a pack of gringos come in.

The place rules. The food is great and the environment real. The TV was showing the Mexico vs. Trinidad soccer match and the place was full with people enjoying it. We ordered our food just as the rain started to fall. Not long after, a man (presumably the owner) offered to unlock his outdoor covered patio area so we could shelter our bikes from the rain.

The rain intensified. The collective let out a gasp as the power blinked on and off a few times. The hail started. This was fun! We were strange when we walked in but we are now another group riding out the storm together, all of us suspended there while the hail pelted the ground outside. The weather gave people something to talk about and everyone relaxed. Any awkwardness or racial tension that might have existed disappeared and we were all one happy family in there.

If only it was hailing all the time.

The most violent part of the storm passed, so we ventured out in the rain to finish our ride home. The lightening was majestic, wrapping around the sky dramatically. Each flash would spread its light across the wet pavement as if the pavement itself was a backlit sheet. Deep streams of runoff carried their debris across the roads and swirled into potholes as we splashed through them. The pavement stretched the alternating colors of the stoplights for blocks and blocks, with red streaks in the pavement in front of my wheel warning me of the required stop far off in the distance. In the residential neighborhoods, the single streetlights on the corners cast a stripe of reflecting light down the block -- a ribbon I could follow to see the road.

Every bit of the city is different in the rain. It is nature's way of giving the city a natural high -- enhancing its contours, lights and colors -- and, as always, riding is the best way to experience it.

Nothing beats how storms enhance a ride and nothing beats how hail enhances society.

Mama said there'd be days like this...

Yesterday was race #7 of the Midwest Fat Tire Series, a series in which I aspire to win the very competitive expert class.

Two weeks after gaining a spot or two due to mechanical problems among my competitors, karma came back to bite me. I was on pace to win this race, which would have marked my first win ever as an expert. I was sitting in second behind Jason Stiger, a guy who I've been racing neck and neck with since beginner class, and I was less than 1 minute behind him. He is known to start fast and strong and take his time in the first lap while I get faster as the race progresses, so I was confident when I knew we were going to be doing 3 laps of this very demanding course.

On the homestretch of lap 2, I started to notice my rear tire losing air pressure. It started to wash out on the rocks, so I was forced to stop and attend to it. It seemed like the tubeless tire may just have lost its seal, so I blasted it with a CO2 shot. It seemed to hold, so I got back on and started hauling. By the end of lap 2, the tire was losing pressure again and slowing me down, but I was still holding my own, so I tried to ride through it.

Early in lap 3, the tire rolled off the rim and planted me firmly into the forest, leaving me a bit scratched and my head aching from smacking the group. I immediately noticed that the metal-on-metal sound I had heard during the ordeal was my stem twisting itself out of alignment on the steerer tube, meaning the my tire was pointed hard right when my handlebars were straight. I tried to compose myself, dug the tools out of my jersey pocket and went to work righting the stem. Instead of putting a tube in the rear tire like I should, I stubbornly tried to seal it again, thinking that even if it was leaking, it would be faster to top it off 2 or 3 times than it would be to stop, take the back wheel off and put a tube in an uncooperative tubeless tire.

Wrong. A mile or two later, I was off the bike, changing the flat trailside as the last of my class finally overtook me. For the rest of the race, I didn't have it in me to fight anymore. I was riding very strongly and it wasn't enough, but it was beyond my control.

This is part of racing. It will teach me to have my bike completely ready on race day. It will teach me to be patient, keep working and come out even stronger for the next race. It is only a matter of time until my points competition gets a flat or two. They won't catch me, flats or no flats, as long as I can stay on my bike.