Bike to Work Day Sucked -- STRANDED

I decided to risk biking to work yesterday even with the rain in the morning. After my morning meetings from home, I saw some blue sky, so I hoped on the bike and went into work. I had some bad luck along the way.

Eight miles into my ride, I got a flat tire after hitting a rock.

Things got worse.

My spare tire turned out to be a two-pump chump. As I was pumping it up, the valve broke.

Things got worse.

My package of emergency patches, which I probably could have used on the original tube, was empty. (Mental note: Get more patches.)

At that point, I was officially stranded.

Thankfully, public transportation was an option where I broke down. I was on central expressway half-way between the Sunnyvale and Mountain View train stations, which would have been a hike, but I was able to walk to a light rail station that connected with CalTrain.

Things got better.

As I got to the light rail station approx 1/4 mile away, the train pulled up just as I got my ticket. I don't think the trolleys run that often mid-day, so a minute slower and I would have been there for a long time.

As for caltrain, that wait was pretty short as well. The train pulled up after a 10 minute wait.

I took caltrain to downtown Sunnyvale so I could get to a bike shop and fix my tube. I purchased a few tubes, borrowed a pump, fixed the flat and went along my way back to work. Total time for the detour was about 60-90 minutes. Not too bad...

Things got worse.

Oh, and things got worse again. It started raining again. If I had not broken down, I would have made it to work rain-free. Oh well....