A day at Putrajaya 2

Yesterday at Putrajaya, desperate for more cycling mileage, went for a training ride at Putrajaya. Not a good day for me it seemed.

The moment I parked the car, realized I left the socks at home. OK fine, not really a big deal. After I struggled to remove the bike from the car's back seat, had a really disturbing stomach discomfort and really had to go. In went the bike again. Luckily lately I always park right in front of a public toilet for my rides.

Already getting late. Few minutes into the ride, noticed the cyclometer was acting up. My speed was over the place. From 30km/h to 19km/h to 31km/h to 22km/h to 33km/h over a few seconds. It just messed up my average speed and recorded distance. Damn it.

Less than 5 km into the ride, again, the dreaded puncture. It was the rear wheel (again). Stopped and removed the tyre using the tyre levers I just bought the day before. They worked like a charm and it was much easier than before. Every rider should have a pair!

Pedro's tyre levers

On goes a fresh inner tube, put on the tyres and try out my, also newly bought shiny & sleek Topeak pocket pump. Then I found out the valve stem was too short the pump can't lock on the valve! I was damned. A 5 km walk looked inevitable.

Luckily a group of young boys cycled past. They stopped to check me out. And to my luck, one of them had a long stemmed spare tube. Offered to buy it from him, but he refused. Just ask me to exchange with my short stemmed tube. About 5 minutes and a handshake later, thanked the group and made my move. BTW, the Topeak pump worked well and managed to pump higher pressure than my previous Zefal ASV. Very small in size, yet very efficient. The cyclometer then continued to act up and was so fed-up I removed it.

Topeak Micro Rocket ALT

But the string of incidences wrecked my motivation. After maybe 15-18 km or so decided to call it a day and retreated back to the parking lot.

A really bad day it was indeed.