I awoke at 6:30 and was excited to have time to get a good ride AND to see how my cold weather gear works. Daunell's phone said 16 degrees. Mine said 18 degrees. What was it? I don't know.
I planned to do the "Provo Slate Canyon Drive" ride (https://ridewithgps.com/trips/17794373) which would take a little under 1 1/2 hrs.
I put on my white compression pants and shirt, followed by my medium sized base layer pants and shirts we bought from Costco, followed by my large size base layers I bought from Costco. Then I had my cold weather cycling pants and jacket (the one I inherited from dad). I put on my helmet rain cover so it would keep in the heat. I put on my head cover for the sun followed by my balaclava. I was ready to go!
I took off and was judging how well my cold weather gear was doing. My core was very good. My hands were doing okay. I had ski gloves on I had purchased from Costco. I also had on neoprene toe covers over my shoes. My feet seemed to be doing well.
My face was a little cold, but not too bad. I spent the first 10 minutes trying tifigure out if I should cover my all I could, including my nose, or if it should just be my mouth, or if I should have my mouth out as well. If I wasn't moving at a good clip and the balaclava covered my nose, my glasses would fog over and I couldn't see. If I was moving it was good. I kept changing this and never figured out exactly how I wanted it. I figure it is one of those things that will change throughout the ride as things change.
Then it happened! I noticed that I was bouncing as I was pedaling. I looked at the shock and thought, "Wow! This cold must affect it somehow." But, that doesn't make sense. After a little bit of looking around and thinking about it, I saw that my front wheel was doing the bouncing. I couldn't really see the tire where it met the road due to sight lines, but I slightly turned the wheel as I was leaning to see and there it was. My tire was flat!
16 to 18 degrees and my tire is flat. I hesitated a second then thought, "Well, I best get to it." I had to pull out my tool bag as it is buried where I carry it. I took off the front wheel and looked around it to see if I could easily find the culprit. I did see a thorn or boar's head, or whatever it was.
I took the tire off making sure to keep the alignment the same so I could easily find the hole in the inner tube.
The hole was right at the top of the H in SCHWALBE so it was easily seen and located.
I must say that it was so cold my fingers were getting numb and had a very hard time unscrewing the valve cap and the valve stem nut and screwing the pump onto the valve stem and off the valve stem.
I decided that I would use the CO2 cartridge instead of my hand pump to save on time. By the time I had used it to put a little air in it to confirm the location of the hole and to give it a little air to put it back in and on the rim, it ran out as I was pumping up the tire after it was on. I measures the tire at 18 psi. No way I could ride with that. I pulled out the second CO2 cartridge, but I couldn't unscrew the old one from the trigger. I had to use my hand pump.
It was hard unscrewing the valve chuck from the hand pump body and screwing it on to the valve stem. It was then hard to unscrew it after the tire was pumped up, but not as hard as the other times. It was hard then to screw the chuck back onto the pump body for storage. NOTE TO SELF: In cold weather a quick pressure chuck is much better than a screw chuck!
During the time I was fixing the flat, I had to have my gloves off. I would have to put my hands into my coat under my armpits frequently to try to warm them. My fingers were numb! Warming them in my armpits helped a little, but not like I expected. Just as I was finishing, I realized that my cycling jacket had the breather openings unzipped. That means there was an opening just under each armpit! I quickly zipped them up and wished I had discovered this sooner.
There was a clock on the sign in front of the school across the road. It took my an hour to fix the tire!