funny thing happened on the bike today

I'm stuck in Pemberton, but the one good thing is the riding here. Great trails for XC, good roads for riding. So I put my bike together and got ready for a 75min ride with 4x5min @20kTT pace, 5min recovery.

Got through my second 5 minute piece and had averaged 41.7 and 40.2. That's when things got interesting. Turns out that Sea to Sky Highway goes through a massive native reserve between Pemberton and Lillooet. So I was getting funny/dirty looks for a while, until I discovered that Sea to Sky also goes up a 13km, 4000 foot mountain pass as well.

Now at the time I didn't realize it was that massive, but once I started the climb I HAD to see how far it went. At every switchback I figured it would end around the corner. Nope. 48 minutes later I got to the summit at 1300 vertical meters. The best part is that - if you've watched the news at all this summer you know there's a massive forest fire in Lilloet - so the air was pretty yucky. But I managed to keep things aerobic spinning in my lowest gear on 12% grades.

Then it got really interesting. I got to the top and so now it was time to turn around and go back down, seeing as its the only road I know around here. Within 100 meters I was above 60, and holy crap was it a technical descent. I think there were 5 switchbacks with a number of sweepers that I took at 70+. Then right at the bottom there was one final switchback that I had to brake hard for (car signage said 20km/h around the turn, I took it at 45).

It was about then I could actually hear my carbon rims getting hot and starting to squeek, then my front tire blew. The glue had melted and the tire rolled off the rim, and I had to go into ninja mode to stay upright. So then I was 20km from my hotel with a flat tire. Long story short a truck driver stopped and loaded me up and was kind enough to drive me back (and was telling me the entire way how much he hates cyclists on the road). The good news is my ride actually only ended up being about 90 mins since it took me 10 minutes to descend then I got a ride back! Thus concludes my adventure today. Now I don't have a pool or a bike for tomorrow, and I need a new tubular tire before leaving for OZ on Wed night. Fun fun.