Punctured during my event but the coolest thing happened as a result
Sorry this is long but I want to share a great experience I had on the weekend.
On Sunday I participated in the womens only 'SUB' (Sarah Ulmer Brand) ride hosted by Olympic pursuiting champion Sarah Ulmer.
There was a 20k, 40k and 60 k event and I entered the 40 k which was two laps of the course.
Sarah rode the event on a fitness bike in leisure clothes and street shoes and bascially just pottered round talking to people (still it meant I can say that I passed Sarah Ulmer since she originally started with the 60 k field ten minutes ahead of us and I passed her at about the 10 k mark)
Anyway just before the end of the first lap I punctured. It was one of those really slow ones where for a while you just start going slower and slower and it takes a while to figure out what is going on.
Anyway I finally do work out its a puncture, stop and change it. I had been worried that I would be butter fingers in a bit of a panic because although I've had pleanty of punctures in training it was my first one in an event. In the end I probably did my quickest tyre change ever.
I'm just taking my pump off my frame - when who should ride up and stop but Sarah Ulmer !!! She asked me if I needed any help, but I said I had it under control and had a good pump (i have a road morph) - at which point Sarah says she doesn't have a pump anyway.
Within 30 seconds the next cool thing happens because the roving mechanic drives by. When he asks if I need help I take him up on it (he had a floor pump). I reckon it took him about 20 seconds to pump up the tyre whereas it would have taken me a few minutes with my pump. He also put it back on for me (which probably saved a bit more time since it was the rear wheel and always have to jiggle them a bit to get them on).
Meantime I am putting my pump back on my bike and picking up my stuff (Sarah picked up my levers and clicked them all back together) talking to Sarah all the time.
Then comes the prize giving. All the winners of both merit prizes and spot prizes are getting a 12 pack of drinking yogurt as part of their prize. I had only just finished joking to the people around me that if I won anything I would have to decline the yogurt because I was riding home and had no way of carrying it - when my name gets called for one of the random spot prizes.
So I go up and get my prize and Sarah recognises me and mentions shes happy I won the prize because I'd had bad luck with the puncture. John Bridges the MC (who does some cycling event coverage for tv) makes me take my yogurt so I give it to the people around me. My prizes was a t-shirt from the Sarah Ulmer leisure brand.
Before the prizegiving I had been in line to get Sarah's autograh and had stayed in line through prizegiving because she promised to finish them. I had been planning to get my helmet signed - but she happily signed both the t-shirt and my helmet, and was really complimentary about how under control I had looked while dealing with my puncture.
Sarah has a reputation about being a really fabulous generous person and I must say that I had been a bit of a cynic about how much it was a media image - but now I can confidently say that it is all true.
So - while my event didn't go as planned in terms of my time I had a really really great day.
