I went to the last Thursday bike practice with
@MadisonDan and company last night. I showed up early and decided 2 years later to finally tackle that non-drive side dismount/mount. Holy shit that's tough. I actually figured out the dismount and got pretty comfortable pretty fast but damn is getting back on a struggle. I'm not a stranger to the stutter step. It took me half a season to get confident enough to throw myself onto my saddle on my dominant side. I basically just feel like it's my first time on a cyclocross bike again. I'm a long ways away from high speed barriers but might be close enough to being able to carry my bike on the non-drive side while shouldering which would be great.
Halfway through our run-up drill yesterday I was coming down an off camber at speed and drilled both rims on a rock hard dirt divot which instantly pinched my front tubular. I left my race wheels on the bike because I was testing my hack job of a repair on my rear tire from my Nittany flat. That repair consisted of gluing the tire flap back down to the casing, applying a tube patch to hold it down (external to the tire, hah.) and then filling with stans. It worked through my half practice yesterday so I will be racing it this weekend. The puncture is outside of the tread so the patch isn't on the main rolling surface. I also applied the patch with 15 PSI in the tires, wrenched down some toe straps to hold it down then pumped the tire up to 60PSI to really get a good patch-tread bond.
Anyway, I shouldered my bike and ran halfway to the car leaving practice. That shit hurts really bad. I also still think I have a mean knot in that shoulder from my Sunday crash. I got home and stans'd up the front. It sealed pretty quick. I deflated the tire, then re-inflated it. The clot came loose then sealed up again. I repeated this one more time and the clot held. I have an old tire stretching that is in slightly dirty but very good condition and 2 new one's going to Laughing Dog I wont have those in my hand until Gloucester.
When it comes down to what tire do I replace before Gloucester I don't know which one I'm going to pick..... Probably my rear since that patch/stans job is jankier then just the front stans job. I may send that front to tire alert for re-tubing since it only has 2 races on it. Ugh.
Edit: I also flatted my road bike over night from the Wednesday Waffle ride. 3 in 5 days.
