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I haven’t been having the best luck with cycling lately. On the last few long rides I have taken, I’ve run into mechanical difficulty; most recently, two flat tires on a 75-miler, which I had to cut short to 52.

Today was the Cider Mill Century. I have been looking forward to this 100-mile ride all summer, and have been training hard, so that I would be able to enjoy the ride. The weather has been great the past couple of weeks and that made me even more excited about the ride, since it would be chilly at the start, and only about 80 by the finish. That’s 23 degrees cooler that the last time I did this ride, and suffered through the last 30 miles or so. I’ve been getting slimmer too, as my training has helped me shed 13 pounds in the past couple months. But the last few days, I have been downing the carbs so I could drag my butt up the hills with the fast riders.

After a 45-minute drive to Louisburg, KS, I parked and proceeded to get ready for the ride, got registered, got my bike out and my jersey on, got all SPF’d up and went to put on my shoes… “Where are my shoes?” “Why they are at home in the garage, of course, just where you left them, dummy.”

Left them Hanging

Of all the things you could leave behind for a bike ride, shoes are nearly the worst choice. You could leave a jersey home and just ride in a t-shirt and not look too out of place. Forgetting your sunglasses would just mean you’d be squinting a bit more. Even if you didn’t have cycling shorts you could still manage to ride, albeit less comfortably. But the shoes. I don’t think even cutting the ride short and cycling in my hiking boots would have been a good thing. Maybe I could have ridden with the 25-mile group in the back with the ladies. I would have turned some heads in my Assos jersey and bib shorts cruising along at 12 mph.

Since the parking lot was jam-packed, I had to wait to leave until after the ride started. The JCBC people were nice enough to give me my money back when I went to tell them I wasn’t doing the ride. It was heart-breaking to watch everyone else depart and even harder to miss out on those Cider Mill doughnuts at the end. The drive home was depressing, and to top it off, the Clash song “Rudie Can’t Fail” came up on the iPod. Still not sure if that was meant to cheer me up, or to mock me!

So my luck continued when I got home. I decided to go get some miles in, and do my Lawrence and back route – 63 miles or 75, depending on which way you go. I got as far as Linwood and broke a spoke on my front wheel. I could have just continued with a wobbly front, but decided the way my luck has been going, I’d better just turn around and limp home. I’d have to settle for 30 miles instead of 100.

And if I have to drive any distance to the next group ride, I will have a checklist filled out and double-checked.