What's with this little black cloud over my head?

Ok, which one of the bike gods did I piss off? Was it Velodromus, or Cadencio? Maybe it was Flattius Maximus? Man, I don't know but somebody is angry with me!

Two days in a row now I've gone for a nice walk with my bike. Yesterday I went out on the fixed gear road bike, but I didn't have a pump or any CO2. I figured it was a risk but I was only planning to be gone for an hour and was just cruising around not too far from home. No sweat! Well, I got a flat of course. I never ride without something to fix a flat with. Never. So I of course get a flat. It's only fair right? So I ended up walking about 2-3 miles to get home... in my bike shoes and mostly uphill. (No it wasn't snowing and there wasn't a headwind both ways.) I got home to the knowing and sarcastic smirk of my wife... how I do love her. Washed the stink of stupidity off and moved on.

Well, I figured that since my fun fixed gear ride got abbreviated yesterday and since I spent the time working on the wheel today, I might as well try things again. I had air now, so it should be all good. Plowed my way around on one of our usual lunchride routes and drug my big ole behind up a mean climb in my too big gear (what was I thinking building a 90" [50x15] gear for a road bike?). I got to the top and thought to my self, "I've earned this downhill" and began my descent. Just as I was thinking it was time to start slowing down because I was going awfully fast on the road on a fixed gear, I ran over a small piece of very sharp sheet metal that cut the tire from one bead across to the other bead. I went from 120 lbs of pressure in the tire to ZERO in a nano-second and the bike swerved and veered and squirmed as I tried to maintain composure and bring the bike to a stop without getting bucked off. Once I got to a stop and realized I was still alive, I made sure I hadn't, in fact, crapped in my bibs. To say I was a bit startled by the experience would be a slight understatement. So I grabbed the cell phone out of the jersey pocket and called in for an office mate to come pick me up and prevent me from making a 10 mile march in my cycling high heels.

I'm riding a different bike tomorrow. Maybe there is a curse on the fixed gear bike. I hope not all of my fixed gears though, as I am supposed to be racing at the track tomorrow night. I need to conduct an exorcism, perhaps, and remove the stinky demon trying to keep me from enjoying my ride. My wife is Catholic, so I'll ask her how it's done.

Tim