I had hit a pot hole pretty hard around the 25 miles mark. It was hidden by some tree shadows on the road. I had almost lost control of the bike and a water bottle bounced off onto the road. I had already been thinking of replacing the front tire, it has over 5,500 miles on it and begining to show its age. I'm sure this pot hole didn't help it any.
Around 40 miles later I noticed a thump, thump, thump sound, I wasn't sure if it was the road or something on a wheel. This sound went on and off for a few miles. I convinced myself it was just the way the road was constructed and forgot about it.
Then there was a very loud POP! sound.
Just as it was beginning to register that a tire must have popped, I was down on the asphalt. Closer inspection shows the front tire had split open and the inner tube had popped. The tire must have been ready to pop for a while, and making the thump sound every time the weak spot rolled around. If only I had listened to what my bike was telling me! The wreck also ripped off the side water bottle cage and the mount for the air pump. I ended up wire tying the air pump to the handlebars once I was ready to leave.
I ended up with some cuts and scrapes, nothing very bad, Lucky for me, I wasn't going very fast, although I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow. I always carry some repair supplies with me, including a thick rubber boot for repairing busted tires. If I had noticed the problem before I allowed it to pop, the repair boot would have worked without an issue. But this tire rip was a few inches long making it unlikely a repair would work at all. I ended up putting in two boots. The inner tube also had a long rip in it so I replaced it as well.
I pumped up the tire lower then normal. The repair looked good, but I was going to be cautious, I didn't want to be flying down a hill and have it pop again. After 9 miles I started hearing the thump, thump again and knew the tire would most likely split open again. The next sag stop was about a mile away, so I rode the last mile to the sag stop, then called it quits for this Century ride.
I want to thank everyone that stopped and asked if I needed any help, this includes the church goers that offered me tea and fresh water. I'm sorry about the loud word I hollered when I crashed in front of your delegation...... not sure how that slipped out, but at least the videos audio wasn't working very well at the time.
Ride details (I forgot to turn off the GPS before I hitched a ride, so I had to manually cut off some of the ride, I ended up losing about 5 miles of the trip.)
Ride summary below:
The White River Sound Chorus at a SAG stop
The actual wreck, not sure what happened to the audio here.
I may download some more videos later.
