Have you ever started the day with gorgeous weather, plans for a long ride, and you feel as if nothing can sour your plans?

My day began with a fresh cup of brew, new cycling gear, bike loaded on the hitch rack, and with all systems go. I kissed hubby goodbye and reminded him that I was riding a long ride this morning and headed out the door to my adventure.

I was driving to meet my cycling partner and as I was coming down a hill, two cars ahead of me slowed to turn left. I gently braked and had plenty of space between the car in front of me and my car but as I looked in my rearview mirror I watched in horror as the car behind me came barreling down the hill with the driver distracted by something in the seat next to her. I knew she wasn't going to be able to stop in time so I quickly pulled over onto the shoulder, in a construction zone, in hopes that she would break in time and not hit the car in front of me.

She slammed on the breaks and followed me onto the shoulder.

Her car hit my bike rack dead on and bent the heck out of it. It damaged the tailgate and with the force of impact the bike was thrown out of the secure holders, off the rack, and hit the back of my car. The rim of the front tire gave my car what looked like a skin burn. All in all I walked away with a sore finger. My Roubaix has a pretty serious scuff on the side and I don't trust it enough to ride it now and I don't know about the rims either. I'll take my bike to the shop to get an estimate of damages for my insurance.

After all this happened I still wanted to meet with my cycling parter so after the policeman was finished with the report I drove home to swap out bikes. I grabbed the Fargo with the tubeless mtb tires and aired the tires up a little. I drove back to where I was going to start the ride and once I got to riding, all was going great. We met and proceeded to ride to the next destination when all of a sudden I heard BANG!! and I looked down and my front tire had exploded and peeled off the rim. The bike and I got sprayed by Stan's. I figured if I could get the tire to seat right with the right burst of air, I could keep going. I started using the frame pump and just couldn't pump fast enough to seat the tire on the rim. Plus I bent the presta valve. So I stopped, dug out a spare tube, and proceeded to put it on but didn't have a tool to remove the tubeless valve on the rim. So I called hubby again and he sent someone to come get me. (I did have a friendly farmer offer me a ride. )

So I finally made it home and took the air compressor to the tire and it aired up just fine. Note to self: carry air cartridges and multi-tool WITH pliers. I added more Stan's and took it for a test ride.

The upside to all this is I had on my new Sugoi capris and high vis Smartwool jersey so I looked oh so fashionable while stranded on the side of the road.