Face to Face with Wile E Coyote and a BLOW OUT

Last Saturday Jose went for his usual Bike Ride. He was going to go for the 100 mile ride. He got up at 5:30am and got ready. I usually wake up when he does and it is hard to go back to sleep after that, but I was trying. I was exhausted from the whole week. Finally, I started dosing off again when I heard Jose enter the house again. (we have tile in our house) He already had his biking shoes on and all I heard for 30 minutes was "click-clack", "click-clack", "click-clack". Aaahhh, this was very frustrating. I am tired!! Finally, it ended. I think he left just after 6am. Ah, I closed my eyes again. 5 Seconds later, my son called out for me: Mommy, I need to pee!! I'm awake...I'm hungry....and shortly after that the second one joined in. Oh well, might as well just get up, this is not going to happen. So, at 6:30am I was sitting downstairs with the kids eating our breakfast watching KPBS. I don't even remember what was on. I was still trying to wake up. :0) After "recovering" we went about our day and just took it easy. The weather was great and I knew Jose would probably have a good day on his bike ride. Around 11:30am I started making lunch, thinking he would be back soon. The phone rang and it was Jose. He was in the Wine Country near Temecula and he was going to be late. It was a long story he said...I will try to describe his day for you........

Picture yourself riding your bike early in the morning. It is going to be a good day, you feel great and you've got the road all to yourself. Or so you thought. All of a sudden, in the middle of the road, you see, what looks like a dog at first glance, but soon you realize it isn't one. It is a Coyote. Oeps. Never seen one of those up close before. It's just standing there, staring at you. Okay, you think. These guys are afraid of us, so no big deal. You make some noise, fling your arms around a bit...thinking he'll scurry into the bushes, but to your amazement he does not budge an inch!! Hmmmm, this is not what you were expecting. You come to a complete stop and at this point are thinking of Plan B. (Can you hear the little music from the Clint Eastwood movie when he is facing his enemy? - hahahahaha) It is just you and the Coyote starting at each other. Perhaps throwing a rock will help...NOPE...negative. Mr. Coyote has decided he wants to come take a closer look and is heading straight towards you. Oh dear, I better turn around. And..... the chase is on..... .you have never sprinted this fast EVER, and you discover you can actually go REALLY fast on this bike. Zoem!! Beep, Beep!!...After a while, you see the Coyote is gone...Whew!! This is crazy!! I guess you are going to have to take an alternate route. After a few minutes you run into two older gentlemen (they are about in their 80's) and you tell them about the Coyote and ask them if they ever attack humans. One gentleman explains kindly more about them and also about other wild life in the area. The other gentleman is fascinated by the bike. "Wow, look at this bike!" "This thing cost more than my car!!!" Hahahaha... Time to move on.....on to the next adventure....

So, you have recovered from your encounter with Wyllie Coyote and are now on your way again. You have covered around 56 miles at this point. When all of a sudden, Boem!! Blow out. Okay, well, this will be good practice since you have never changed a tire before. So, you get to work. Take out the old intertube, put the new one in (or you think you put the new one in) but heh, not working..what is wrong? Two nice ladies stop to help you, but they also cannot get air into the tire. They say they think you have a flat in the new tube too. How is that possible? All of a sudden you realize that you put the OLD intertube back into the tire!! You don't say anything, because that is really embarassing and you quickly thank them for their assistance. Oh, this is just great!! The CO2 is empty that you had and so now you need to walk about 1/2 mile to the nearest gas station. But of course, they don't have pumps for these bikes, so you finally give in and end up calling a family member whom, thank goodness, lives nearby, to come pick you up and take you home.

Of course, I am making this story a bit long winded and also making a bit of fun of it, only becasue we laughed about it so much ourselves afterwards. But after hearing Jose's adventure of the day, I just had to write about it. His attempt for the 100 miles that day failed, unfortunately, but he now knows something else he needs to practice on....Changing tires!! Perhaps a crash course can be incorporated into the May 26th Training Camp :0) And perhaps he should carry one of those whistles that scares off dogs.....would those on Coyotes too?

Stay tuned for the next adventures of Team Pena.... :0)