Sunday, February 22, 2009

Smooth move ex-lax

I can't say that I've never lost anything before. I'm usually pretty careful with my expensive toys, but I've been known to have a momentary lapse of consciousness here and there. My latest came at the end of a relatively disappointing attempt to ride Saturday.

The winds were whipping and the people were bailing so I bailed on the ride too. In retrospect, fighting the winds would've sucked nearly beyond comprehension, but it would've made me stronger and now that I look back, richer (or at least less poor). Pete and I shot over to the center trails in hopes that the ice had melted off and the trails would now be a nice frozen pack. Well, they were indeed frozen, but they were also covered in large sheets of ice. We rode just enough of rollercoaster to kill our buzz and head off in hopes that Denman's would be less icy. Wrong again. By now we were about 30 minutes in and still trying to salvage something, anything.

We crossed the little bit of track left on J11 and hopped on. Eureka, we found a little bit of track that wasn't a solid sheet of ice. We made a lap and headed back for a second round. At the very end we had to cross a bit of a brush pile and sure enough I found a thorn and an instant flat. Not really into changing a tube in freezing weather for another 10 minutes of riding I opted to walk it back to the truck as Pete took another spin through. I made it back to the truck pretty quickly by cutting across the tracks and through the bottom of rollercoaster. That's where things went awry.

I put the bike in the truck, got my deflated tire/wheel put into the back of the truck and headed towards the shop to fix the flat. I remember hitting the stop button on my bike computer to shut it down and that's the last I remember seeing it. Now, if I just lost or broke my bike computer, I wouldn't be too upset. Shoot, I've got 3 or 4 setting in my bike box. Nope, I managed to lose a REALLY expensive bike computer. The cheapest replacement I've found is a shade under $200 for a refurbished unit off ebay. Doh! Not exactly what I want to be spending my money on right now. I've got a lot bigger fish that need that moolah.

I tore my truck apart, searched my bike clothes and gym bag, and even took a trip clear back to Ashworth pool parking lot in hopes that a lack of people using the trail Saturday might have left it laying in the parking lot. Near as I can guess, I probably took the computer off my bike and sat it on the bed rail of the truck. I simply forgot to grab it in my hurry to head off to the shop and it simply fell by the wayside. The only other thing I can think of and isn't as likely to me is that I left it on the bike and someone decided to crawl up in the back of the truck while parked at the shop or down off Court avenue and steal it off the bike. A pretty unlikely scenario in my book, but still possible. So, I'm pretty pissed at myself for being that dumb. Man what a bummer.

3 comments:

Brian said...

I've got some REALLY bad news for you. Corey and I were out there a little later than you and found a computer in the parking lot. The screen was completely smashed. Corey sat it on the retaining wall next to the steps leading up to the pop machines by the pool. I doubt that it is able to be salvaged.

Buckshot77 said...

Well, that at least confirms where I left it at. Most likely it got run over by my own truck then. I'll head down over lunch and see if it's still there. If so, I'll have to call Garmin and see how extensive their repair service is... $99 is what they list for a full overhaul on their site, I guess I wonder if that includes massive failure from being a dumbass?!

Maverick said...

Don't feel bad. One of my kids threw away my car keys when we were cleaning the house one night.

The real kicker is that the van key cost 120 bucks to replace because it has a computer chip in it.

I could have bought some nice bike stuff for 120 bucks, maybe new shoes or something.

take care
mike