We call it cross training don’t we? Well it sounded like a good idea at the time, a 40k bike ride from Mud Bay to Tsawwassen and back with the obligatory halfway watering hole stop at the Rose & Crown.
We all met in the car park at Mud Bay with an interesting collection of bikes. There were cool ones, old ones and darn right ridicules ones but we didn’t care, all of a sudden we were hard core bikers, so off we went.
The ride took us a little longer than we expected and it wasn’t long before we were all fidgeting in our saddles, except for Dave that is, who’s saddle resembled something more like a comfy lounge sofa on springs. Although he had the most ridicules looking bike, he now had the biggest smile on his face. On we went straining our eyes to see if we could spot that oasis of a watering hole we’d been promised was there. It didn’t help when Dean informed us, around halfway on our outward journey, that this is where he usually starts from when he’s done this trip before. Our faces dropped.
Twenty km down and we could smell lunch, there it was at last, the Rose & Crown, wonderful. One problem though, on the last push to the pub Dean had become deflated, yes he’d got a puncher in his rear. To most of us this would have been it, stay at the pub and catch a taxi back. Not Dean, he had the tools, he had the parts and he had the knowledge. With ninja like hands Dean set about the job with consummate ease while we watched on, sipping our cold drinks and revelling in the fact that our bottoms were becoming part of our bodies again. Job done Dean took the offending bike for a test run. Disaster. It punctured again. This time it must be taxi time surly? No? You mean you have two spare inner-tubes? This man’s a walking parts shop! Kudos Dean.
So we were on our way back, fully topped up internally, with some of Tsawwassen’s finest rocket fuel. We were flying at breakneck speed, well at least it felt like it, until that nagging ache in our posteriors welled up again. We were about 7k from home and Dean’s tyre gremlin hit again – another puncture. This time even Dean couldn’t pull another tube out of the hat. So Dean, being Dean, just put his foot to the metal and powered on, riding on his rear rim for the last leg and beating us all back home by a proverbial country mile.
A great day. We must do it again sometime!
