A club ride with the "Semi-Elegant Trek"

   Since I don't do anything else with my road bike, I use it for a club ride two, maybe three times a month.  The ride I choose is a fairly flat one, with older club members who are able to keep up while I suck on their wheels.  It's a good thing to do, because it makes me ride faster than I would normally choose when I ride alone.
    Last night was a particularly great night to go, the temp was in the mid 80's with little wind or humidity.  I pumped up the tires and loaded the new classic onto the car to go out and meet the group.

I had fine tuned it, test ridden it, and adjusted the fenders the day before so I was all ready.  The only question was, "How long before one of the spandex hamsters asked me how much the fenders weighed?"  I was watching the clock  to see how long it took.

   There always seems to be a different group when I go on Thursdays, and one consistent ride leader/couple who ride a Co-Motion tandem.  We were waiting for people to arrive and chit-chatting.  One rider was asking about my bike, looking over  the lugwork and reminiscing about his '83 Trek 720 and 

(Gratuitous photo of girl on a bike)

 I thought he would be the one.  When suddenly;

PHSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.....PSSSSSSSSS 

my bike was obviously farting.  I stared down, and surely enough, I wasn't imagining it, my tire was going flat.

Now I have had one flat with Panaracer tires since I switched to them 5 years ago, that was a classic snakebite sidewall blowout after hitting a pothole at 20+ mph.  What in the name of  Moses causes a blowout while standing perfectly stationary, an hour or so after pumping up the tires?  We all stood kind of stunned and stared.  After a few moments of denial, I put the bike up on the rack of my car, told them to go ahead and get started.  I figured I could catch up by cutting through the route.

     After removing the tire, I found nothing to have caused a puncture.  I was a little reluctant to put a new tube in (after all something caused it, and could again right?) but went ahead, pumped it up and hit the road. 

        Long story short; I tried backtracking the route, thinking I'd double back with them when we bumped into each other, but I missed a turn, ended up going the wrong way, missed them entirely and had a wonderful ride out by myself, all the time wondering, "will I be stuck with a flat and no spare next to a lonely menacing buffalo?"(I'm not crazy,there's a farm with them en route).

   Nothing like that happened, I arrived at the beginning as the last few were reloading their bikes.  We talked briefly about the incident, a couple people asked about the fenders and totally disappointed me.  Not a weight wienie in the bunch.  Oh well, maybe next time.