Bike problems, but for once it wasn't me

Francis and I went out for a long ride today. We met at the Runners' Station and headed north. When we got to the GW Bridge, I slowed down realizing that the south side of the bridge was closed. As I turn around, I see Francis riding up with something in his hand. His rear bottle cage holder broke off a couple blocks back. The aluminum bracket broke. He removed one cage and mounted it to the downtube, stuffed the saddlebag into his jersey, and ditched a bottle. We went to the north side of the bridge and negotiated the annoying stairs and then headed north up 9W. When we got to the state line, we started the big descent. Francis was in front and as we came around the bend, I noticed he was motioning to slow down. I was doing about 40mph when I saw the first road flare. Several more called attention to a police car and an ambulance. They were loading a single cyclist onto a stretcher. It didn't look good, but we continued on the descent not wanting to linger and cause a wreck ourselves. We went through Piermont and then to Nyack making a quick stop at the Spoon to refill water.

We continued north and rejoined 9W and started the big climb just before Rockland State Park. About halfway up the climb Francis yelled for me to stop. I circled back and he exclaimed that his pedal fell off. It somehow came unscrewed. Luckily it was and easy fix, but it always sucks to have to restart on a big climb. We blew past Rockland State Park and continue north on 9W until we hit the 40 mile mark on Francis' computer at Haverstraw. We turned and headed south where Francis got a flat at the Upper Nyack High School. After changing out the tube, we quickly rode back to the spoon and topped off water before hammering back to toward the city. At the top of the climb and the state line, Francis once again had to screw his pedal back in again. Once back in New Jersey, we consistently hammered over 20 mph and got back to the city fairly quickly.

We parted ways at the Runners' Station and I headed back to Brooklyn. When I got to Brooklyn, I was just over 85 miles on the day, so I decided to ride around until I hit 90 miles. When I got home, I threw on some running shorts and shoes and headed out on a 3.5 mile run. The run was kind of tough, but I seemed to settle in to a pace after a couple of miles.

I had a pretty good sunday. I'm ready for my next long ride to break the century mark.