BOOM!!
"Oh shit, oh shit!"
Shooting forward on a long downhill, I gripped the front handlebars and tightened the brakes, as my bike began to swerve wildly out of control. After a couple of seconds, my body was hurled to the ground.
SLAM!
With my arms tucked against my body for wrist protection, I hit the asphalt and skidded forward. I lay on the ground moaning for a couple of seconds. In a moment, Adam and a couple of concerned motorists were standing beside me asking, "Are you okay?"
"Yah, I think so," I said, wiping some of the dirt off of my body.
After 25 miles that morning and more than 350 miles that week, my front tube exploded without warning. The concerned couple offered me napkins from their car, and Adam graciously checked my tire for rips in the side wall, while I busily wiped blood off of myself. I had a couple of bloody spots on both hip bones, and a deeper gaping wound on my left elbow. But not to worry--for I am a certified Wilderness First Responder and I know how to care for a wide variety of gory accidents.
In the next few days, I went crazy trying to figure out the cause of the blowout. The tube was not underinflated or overinflated--I am careful about that. There was no pinch--I had been riding on it for 350 miles and had not changed the tube or deflated it. There were no bulges in the tire--I check for those sorts of things. The flat was not a snakebite or a puncture, but an absolute 5-inch blowout. A few days later, I found a likely cause.
It turns out that frequent braking can actually heat the rims, which in turn heats the tire and tube, causing the tube to increase in pressure while causing the tire to loosen around the tube. The simultaneous shift in the position of the tire and the pressure of the tube sometimes allows the tube to come in temporary contact with the rim, which then causes a pinch blowout. It turns out that this sort of accident is so common among tandem riders (who carry a heavy load and thus heat up their rims by braking), that there are certain locations where tandem riders are not allowed to ride downhill--only uphill. Though I can't be absolutely sure about what caused the blowout, this explanation makes sense given the conditions of the day. The weather was hot, the asphalt was hot, I was carrying a heavy load behind my bike that takes a heavy hand of braking to control, and I was coming down the other side of the Adirondack Mountains and facing consistent downhills for a long period of time.
Within 15 minutes, we had changed the tube, dressed my wound, and were back on the road. Oh well. I suppose that most serious athletes have some battle scars to show for their passion. This day I collected a couple more.
After awhile, the hills became smaller and we knew that we had finished our trek through the Adirondacks. It was difficult to get off of our bikes because the black flies were absolutely horrendous. Where I usually opt for using garlic oil, smoke, or sprigs of tansy tucked into my hair to gently deter the biting insects, in New York I became a Deet Machine. I do feel a little bit bad about it, but trust me, it was warranted. I think the biting insects collectively accounted for more bloodshed than my spill.
We bought sandwiches and found a beautiful camping space on the edge of a quiet lake. I also bought myself some dark chocolate to celebrate surviving my first crash.
