Nothing more to it really, I’ll take my hits from the flat gods in one punch, if at all possible.

~10 minutes into 305, first ride on the rigid singlespeed in quite a while, I come flying down into the wash crossing before the climb up to South Lynx Lake road, the one with a new gravel ramp on the south side. I got the triple whammy: snakebite and a sidewall cut on the rear tire. Grumpily, I pull off the tire, patch the two cuts, and pumppumppumppump with my silly little Crank Brothers pump. 20 minutes all told, and I’m off. 5 minutes later, I realize that the soft rear tire was not a hallucination, and pull over again. Repeat. Right as I’m putting the wheel (finally!, and after a 5 minute hunt for half of my spare power link in the pine needles) back on, the patch gives way in a dramatic burst and hissing whine.

Now I’m irate, and pull out my one, weight weenie, non-slime, 26″ spare tube. Get it mounted up at (almost) 30 psi, and I give up on singletrack for the day. Road back to the house for me.

20 minutes later, cruising down the first dirt section of the Old Black Canyon Highway I had, in an amazing feet of synchronicity, a Bobcat run across the road 50 feet in front of me! Seriously!! Second one I’ve ever seen in the wild, and the first was 500 meters away in the snow. As promised, that brightened up my whole outlook on things. Enough to take the long way home.

A good 25 miles in a bit less than 3 hours, including the flat nonsense.

‘Course, there’s nothing a homemade deep dish pan pizza can’t cure. Whole wheat crust, sauce, mozz, spinach, and tofu.

Reaaaallllly good.

Best of all, my legs felt back to normal. Just in time for a weekend playing in May. Potentially, they tell us, in snow.