The Flat Tire Drew Becker

It was a cold Sunday morning, and I had just woke up. I had to get up at six o’clock and get ready for the biking race that would start at eight o’clock. I put my jersey on grabbed my helmet and filled up my camelbak. I walked outside and put my bike in the truck and hopped in. On the drive down I was going over all of the harder parts of the course in my head. When we arrived there was a crowd of people standing in the field at diamond hill. I quickly unloaded my bike and ran over, I was late for the racers meeting. They went over the rules and explained the starting order. After a little bit we headed up into the woods for the start of stage one.

I watched as the line got shorter until it was my turn. My heart started beating fast and then he said go. I pedaled as fast as I could rolling over and jumping off of all the rocks. I hit a corner in the trail and slid out. I quickly picked up my bike and keeped riding. A little ways before the finish I saw David, one of my friends pushing his bike. Once I finished I waited for him. He had a fat tire. I told him that I had a tube and pump and we started to fix it. Fixing the popped tire took longer than we had expected and there were two other riders who were still fixing there flats. But me and David keeped going.

It was going to be a long transition to the start of stage two. As we were riding we were trying to figure out how far behind the other riders we were. It seemed as though the trail went on forever. Eventually we got the start of stage two. We decided to have a break and eat something before we started even though we had time to make up. When we were ready we got up to the line, David was going first. I saw him fly off up and over a rock where I could not see him any more. It was now my turn, I rode up to the line. three,two,one, go, I started to pedal as fast as I could, but conserving some energy knowing that the stage will be long. It took a while but eventually I made it to the end.

The transition to stage three was fast. At the top there was a group of people waiting to start stage five the second to last one. Me and David realized that we were almost fifty minutes behind everyone. So we went to the start of stage three. David went first again. About half way down David was on the side of the trail with his bike flipped over trying to take his wheel off. I stopped to see what happened. He said he got another flat, and he doesn't have a tube to fix it with. I said to him that I have one and he can use it. It took us less than before to change the tube but we still lost a lot of time. We finished the stage and went on to the next two stages.

We crossed the street to get some water and energy bars. Everyone else had already finished. We left to go on the the last stage and the steepest stage. Once we got back and finished the race we wanted to see the results. We both knew they were not going to be good. It turns out that we finished fourteen, and fifteen out of seventeen. I learned that helping someone out and having fun is more important that finishing first.

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