i should have stayed in bed

sg516 · 02-09-2008, 05:32 PM

I woke up today and went to my 8am group bike. We were doing a brick today. i was told it is called a brick because when you start running your feet feel like very heavy bricks. i think it should have referenced something much heavier than a brick. maybe a boulder. it is so hard to do.

anyway, i get there and i am going good. its freezing and my fingers and toes are so cold that they are starting to feel warm. and my legs are burning with the joy that is lactic acid. the bike was 75 minutes. it was an experience. so i am about 5 miles away from being finished. five very long, hilly and grueling miles. when i get to a stop sign.... wait let me back up a sec. i use speedplay clipless pedals. they are great. but clipless pedals are the kind where your shoe is attached to the pedal and you have to turn your foot to disengage your foot from the bike... ok so back to the stop sign. i pull up and disengage my right foot and then, as if in super slow motion i begin to fall to my left. i am powerless to stop it and not quick enough to disengage my foot. so down i go. but hey, on the upside it was at a busy intersection with a ton of cars watching and with lots of other people jogging and biking on hand to laugh and point. so i stand up and lo and behold the cleat that is supposed to be attached to the bottom of my shoe is still attached to the bike. thats bad. its only $50 bad but its still bad. you can't walk five miles in bike shoes, its too cold to walk barefoot and it is extremely difficult to pedal the bike if you can lock the shoe in place. but given the options the most reasonable is to pedal back. so i pedalled back 5 miles using one leg. my injured leg. the one that i have patellofemoral pain syndrome in. the one where my knee tracks laterally. then i got back and ran. it was maybe a mile run so it would have been easy had it not been for the circumstances of the bike ride. remember when we were kids and riding bikes was a fun thing to do?

so we are finished and the 2nd act of the tragedy that was my day begins.

it requires you to come with me to two days ago. montgomery county has the worst roads in north america. i think the DOT is pants on head retarded. i was going down a very highly trafficked road at about 55 mph. and BAM i hit a pot hole. i am convinced that my tire is ruined. so i get to a place that i can pull over and check it out. and it looks like its low on air so i figure it will get me home. i expected yesterday that i would be waking up to a completely flat tire but it was ok. i took it to the gas station and put some air in it and thats when i saw a lump in the tire wall. i figured i'd wait and see if it could hold out until saturday to be replaced and luckily it did. i drove to the group practice on it and didnt have a blow out (miraculously). so back to present day. i finish the brick pack my stuff up and go to my car and the lump on my tire looks like its ready to blow. i was fortunate that there was a tire store across the street from where we were. so i drive it in and they look at it and ask if i want the same kind of tire put on my car. i said yes please. so they quote me a price of $240 per tire!!!! and of course you have to replace two or the car will pull to one side and get uneven wear. so i picked my jaw off the counter and told him thats bullshit and i need somthing cheaper. the cheapest they could give me was $140 per tire + tax + alignment and that would = about $350!! alot less than the high performance tires were but still. ridiculous. the really bad news was that the wheel needs to be replaced too which will run around $500 and thats a modest estimate. all because montgomery county can't fill a stupid pothole. so that part sucked.

on to act 3 or as i like to call it "the tale of the gas station hot dog"

so i give them the car and they tell me its going to be about 45 minutes. i am starving bc i just did all that exercise and need to eat. so i ask if ther is anywhere within walking distance to get some food. the only place was a convenience store at the gas station across the street. so i shudder at the thought of what i might find there. i go in and there is nothing. except... a hotdog turny machine thingy. so i get a hot dog. about 20 minutes later i realize what a dreadfully bad decision this was when my stomach begins to speak to me in a gurgling and unintelligble language. yet i somehow still understood what it meant. if any of you know me you know that i am very phobic of public bathrooms. this hotdog had plans though. it wanted out. they were going to have my car for about another half hour and then i had a 45 minute ride home. it was a gamble. but i made it home before that devilish dog had its way with me. barely.

that was my bad day. so far it has cost me around $400 in repairs and gave me two very sore legs, one which is all cut up and sore from falling and the other from biking on one leg. moral of the story don't eat gas station hot dogs when you are far from home.... strike that... don't eat them at all.

i am afraid to go out of my apartment though. seems fate has it in for me today. i might get hit by lightening, or a plane might fall out of the sky and crash into my car.

but one funny thing came out of this experience. i met a racist dog today. damndest thing. this big guy walks into the tire place carrying a little dog, maybe it was a maltese. my first thought was "what the heck is wrong with people anymore?" who brings a dog into a store with them unless they are handicapped? so that was weird but then i noticed sometimes the dog would bark when people came into the store. it was annoying at first but i started to notice a pattern. it didn't bark at any white people, but it barked at every minority that came in. i thought it was my imagination when it barked at this one white kid but sure enough two seconds later his latino friend walked in behind him. it was freaky. figures the dog was as white as the driven snow. i will forever refer to this dog as 'hitler dog' and he was a mean little bastard. so that was funny.

ParanoidAndroid · 02-10-2008, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sg516

but one funny thing came out of this experience. i met a racist dog today. damndest thing. this big guy walks into the tire place carrying a little dog, maybe it was a maltese. my first thought was "what the heck is wrong with people anymore?" who brings a dog into a store with them unless they are handicapped? so that was weird but then i noticed sometimes the dog would bark when people came into the store. it was annoying at first but i started to notice a pattern. it didn't bark at any white people, but it barked at every minority that came in. i thought it was my imagination when it barked at this one white kid but sure enough two seconds later his latino friend walked in behind him. it was freaky. figures the dog was as white as the driven snow. i will forever refer to this dog as 'hitler dog' and he was a mean little bastard. so that was funny.

This made me think of Curb.

Phaedrus49er · 02-11-2008, 05:33 AM

I dunno, man. Those gas station hotdogs are a great last resort when fiber supplements just aren't cutting it. And holy geez, what kind of car/tires do you have that cost that much? Granted, they probably saw you were desperate for a tire and so jacked up the price. I think North Carolina could give MC a run for its money, but for all the time I've spent up in that area, I agree about the road conditions.

sg516 · 02-25-2008, 03:24 PM

and 16 days later my back tire is flat. that will be 2 more tires i need to buy. i swear if it wasnt for bad luck i would have no luck at all.