First DQ

On a beautiful Sunday morning in eastern Ontario in a town named Brockville I was competing in my second duathlon, not knowing what an awful day I was going to have. After watching the Olympic swimmers take off, all the duathletes began slowly moving over to the start of the first run. The run started off fairly well, I made good time and I even sprinted the last 300 meters to the transition zone (My legs were feeling great) and preceded to move my bike to the mounting area and my impending doom. After biking approx. 4-5 miles and averaging about 22 miles/hour and still feeling great and optimistic, especially after passing about a dozen people, I had dreams swirling in my head that I actually might even get 1st in my AG (19 and under). Then suddenly my rear tire blew as I was just finishing off a hill going about 26m/hour and at that exact moment another guy was just about to try and pass me. Not wanting to get in his way I began hitting the brakes trying to stop and tried to keep my bike steady, where lucky me there just happened to be a very large, very deep pothole. My front tire hit the edge of the hole and I nearly fell over the handlebars trying to keep my balance (wasn't using clipless pedals). And it just so happened that I only had 1 spare tube in my little bag thingy, not wanting to quit this easily I began the humiliating task of asking other riders who were passing if they had a spare tube available. About 300 riders passed when one guy stopped and thankfully threw me a tube. So I took off my tires and began the textbook task of replacing a flat.
Just then a guy who lived nearby came over with a proper pump and patches and started helping me fix my flats. After getting one tire fixed I began to placce it on my bike when suddenly it exploded.....!@#$, so I took the tube out and patched it up. The other tire was finished and as I was re-pumping the first one it REALLY exploded once again. Right at that moment a marshall came up to me in the little ditch I was in and told me I was D/Q. It was hot, I was dirty, greasy, now in last place and frustrated as hell, and I still wanted to finish even if I was last by 10 min or even an hour and I wanted to argue but realized I had no more tubes left and couldn't patch the ones I currently had, but oh well my day was done........!@#$%. And most of you are probably think I didn't check the rim for any problems, but I did so it's unexplainable.

Anyway many thanks to the 2 individuals who helped me out during the race, and hopefully I'll be doing another du this weekend.

~~Gord~~

Edited by the_wenger 2005-08-22 4:37 PM