Summer is over and the Sun is falling fast.

On our ride tonight at Whiting this afternoon turned into an adventure just when we thought it was all downhill. In a way it was going downhill before we even started, let me explain.

Dan managed to pinch his rear tire on a rock at the furthest spot from the parking lot, so as a group we stayed on the crest of the trail until we were rolling. As the Sun was falling into the Pacific Ocean we as a group got to experience some rare failures and rare trail fixes.  This turned out to be a good training session for our friend Chaz who is a rookie SS’er. Dan has been putting a lot of miles down and apparently burned up his supply of tubes so out came the ol patch kit. The patch was installed then I noticed the guys trying to wrestle the tire back on the rim with levers, can you guess it, the tube wasn’t holding air ( always try to put a tire back on the rim without tools first to avoid pinching the tube). Between 6 riders tonight there was one tube left Old Eric hands it over to Dan, an ultra lite in my eyes very fragile I took over as it was getting dark. I have ruined tubes in so many different ways-we didn’t need another learning experience toda, so let’s get rollin and not destroy a new tube I thought to myself. I got the tire inflated and had it back to Dan, he feels the tire and it is too soft for him- he adds more air and pops a spoke. Weyland jumps in at this point and bends the broken spoke around another spoke while Dan is topping off the tire, good to go I thought.

Dan was muttering something as he was installing the wheel, I go in for a closer look its not good. The skewer will not tighten down, in the darkness we discover that skewer threads were gulled= trashed. The nut will not clamp down on the frame, about 3/16″ short. I try like crazy to run the nut down, not happening. Everyone was running light tonight so not much in the way of tools, but Dan and I both had our Keys with us. Idea; use the keys as washers to get the skewer’s nut to tighten down, it worked with two bare metal keys. Now it is dark with no lights not idea of fun, Summer is over and the Sun is falling fast carry a light and ample supplies.