Hi all! This month's rainy Rose Bowl vintage ride was an especially exclusive ride. It was limited to Colnago's owned by Scott and featured me riding my NOS '82 Colnago. As I was the only rider on this edition of the monthly vintage ride I took extra time before the scheduled 11:00 start and used it to try to dry my rain drenched Brooks saddle. I also made an attempt to dry the frame but gave up as the skies opened up to soak my car top mounted Colnago once again. I prepared to ride the bike by removing the NOS gold anodized Fiamme front wheel from the trunk and setting it down on the ground, leaning it against the rear bumper. I then started to unfasten the rest of the bike from the rack but noticed that I could be doing this under the protection of a tree so I got back into the car and backed up under the tree wondering what that scrunching noise was that was coming from the rear. I got out and took the bike off the rack and then went to put on the front wheel. It was then that my rain soaked brain realized that I had just run over my front wheel and that it was wedged under my rear tire. I rolled the car forward, extracted the wheel and looked at the damage. If Fiamme made a gold anodized potato chip this would be it. The Campy skewer was also scraped beyond anything steel wool could do and spokes were sticking out like pasta in a pot. Unfazed, I took out a spare clincher front wheel I had in the trunk which I was going to have trued up. Now I figured it wasn't that bad compared to my Fiamme so I put it on and decided to head off on the ride alone. One clincher and one tubular--with no spare tube for the clincher. But what could happen to me now? The rain had subsided to a light mist as I started on my way and I wasn't feeling too bad about my idiocy so I decided to try to enjoy my own company and the cycling. I was having a nice conversation with myself until about mile 6 when I fell into a sullen silence. This continued until I got it off my chest and started blaming myself for ruining a perfectly unfindable rim in NOS condition due to a momentary brain fade. I fought back this charge by saying that I had cheated myself in a recent ebay deal and that was the end of the fight. I rode in silence the rest of the way and even passed up the coffee shop in Sierra Madre, deciding that nobody deserved a cookie after a day like today. I saw other cyclists out and about who seemed to be wearing sensible rain capes and Pearl Izumi jackets. I, of course was wearing a rain soaked sweatshirt that was adding an extra five pounds to my ride. I slogged along under the misting/raining skies until the last 3 miles when my front tire slowly started to go down. Faced with no spare I started to blame myself for even more stupidity when I hit on the idea of mounting my tubular spare to get me the rest of the way back to my car. Riding gingerly I managed to make it back to the car without further incident and congratulated myself for making it to another monthly vintage ride. Can't wait for next month!
Scott Smith
Stupid, CA