"Beer me that new front wheel!!"

Every time (including the time i rode 75 miles) i have gone to a cross race, i have had an extra front wheel. Or at very least had one lined up to borrow from sombody in the wheel pit. I have not gotten a flat yet. Kind of. I did develop a slow leak of some type in my front wheel. Its a vittoria sew up on there.

Now, before you accuse me of name dropping, let me finish.

I had a little of the tufo brand tire sealant, which i assumed was sort of a universal slime/fix-a-flat type solution to my problems. It is not. John Rubcic must have also thought it was ok, because when i explained to him that the course of action i planned to take was to use said sealant on my slow leak ridden tire, he gave an affirmative, shouldnt-be-a-problem type of response.

Oh how wrong we both were.

Apparently, the stuff in the tufo sealant is made to galvanize butyl rubber, which is what most tubes are made of. not vittorias. Those are made of latex. Apparently does it not only NOT work on latex, it dissolves it.

Unfortunately the situation came to a head just like you think it might about 50 meters into my race, when my front end felt a little squishy, then promptly washed out in the very first hair pin turn. I yelled out a cuss or equally ignorant word of frustration (i can be very colorful when im pissed), reached down and pinched my tire, which was holding about 5 psi at this point.

What bummer man. Of course i had no wheel in the pit, and once i found lisa crowe and matt breyer, who were glad to hook me up with a new wheel, i was just PAST the wheel pit and would have had to do another painfully slow lap on my mavic reflex rim, laced masterfully with 16 guage double butted DT swiss spokes, to a high flange phil wood track hub*. I just took the dnf and chalked it up to Odin being angry with me for going to see wicked after the race. As well he should be.

*due to a contractual obligation, the above subject must also add that this blog post was brought to you by arrowhead orthopedic, dominoes pizza, Padgetts Service Team Of Proffesionals, and in no way reflects the quality of service or product offered by the fine people at Redlands/Riverside Cyclery USA.