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.