I had planned to do an open water swim today, spent all day psyching myself up to do it, only to get an email from my wife asking if I wanted to do a bike ride instead. Yay!
So we decided to do the Farmington women’s triathlon route just to see what it was like. My wife is considering doing the women’s tri, and she is still getting her bike legs, so she wanted to make sure it wasn’t too taxing.
We ended up doing a 16 mile loop, a bit longer than the tri route, but still not too bad. During the ride I noticed that my brakes weren’t adjusted properly. I had to really crank on the back brake to get it to slow me down effectively. I tried to adjust it at a stop and then I took off on route 4. The wind really picked up, and as I pushed through it I felt like I was going up a really steep incline. I thought to myself “wow, this is brutal, all that I’ve heard about the wind making rides difficult is so true.” I couldn’t wait to turn the corner. I finally took a right, but the wind was still there. I had geared up as much as I could and I was really pushing hard. I was sweating profusely.
I looked back and my wife was right with me, I assumed that I was providing a wind break, and that she was really laboring to keep up. About 5 minutes later I hear “Why are you going so slow?” from my wife. At that moment I realized that it wasn’t the wind that was causing the problem.
I pulled over and spun the back wheel. Sure enough the brake was catching. My rear brake isn’t aligned properly, and I didn’t have a tool to fix it, so tightening the brake caused one side to rub. I loosened it back up and suddenly the wind was not a factor. Sheesh, that was brutal.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, but wow, I need to bring my bike tool with me going forward.
Incidentally, the ride was easy, no big hills, pretty much a flat course.
Next on tap, some swim drills.