The Beach and Bike Trouble

It is ridiculously late here (going on 3 am) so I am going to try and make this as quick as possible. I will probably fail, but at least I am going to try.

The highlight of the day was definitely all of the topless women on the beach in Barcelona. I swear that I didn´t seek them out but no matter where we went on the beach there were just women who didn´t seem to have any problem with taking their tops off to sunbathe. I´ve heard before that this is common in Europe, but this was my first time experiencing it.

Besides the (literally) half-naked women, it was also pretty cool to swim in the Mediterranean Sea and to just kick back and relax on the beach. I went with Scott Clayton after we were done with our shifts manning the lab at Brainshare. We took the subway from our hotel down to the beach which was another first for me.

Another highlight of the day was the Brewfest sponsored by the Messaging Architects. At every Brainshare The Messaging Architects throws a big party and invites customers and partners to come celebrate with them. The beer and food is all free. I´ve met quite a few people from TMA over the last couple of days but this was my first time to really sit down and get to know Pierre, the head honcho at TMA. He´s actually a pretty cool guy. In fact, I´ve really enjoyed meeting all of the folks from TMA.

After the party I walked back to the hotel with Rand. We stopped at a bar on the beach put down a few more beers before returning home. I was pretty sauced.

The lowlight of the day was definitely the bike trouble that I had. The plan this morning was to wake up early so that I could go to the beach before my shift started in the morning. When I went to retrieve the bike from the parking garage I discovered that the front tire had gone flat overnight.

Hoping that the flat was just a fluke, I walked the bike all over town trying to find a place where I could pump some air into the tire. Unfortunately, the tire was legitimately and permanently flat. I couldn´t determine the cause of the flat (i.e. there weren´t any obvious punctures) but there was a big hole in the tube and the tire wouldn´t hold any air.

Unfortunately the bike rental place didn´t open until 10 AM. I left a message and emailed them to let them know about the problem. If I could have found an open shop I would have just replaced the tube myself. I told the bike rental place that I worked from 10 to 2 and that I was hoping that they could get the tire repaired before returning in the afternoon.

When I got back to the hotel I checked on the bike and was unpleasantly surprised to find out that the tire was still flat. After talking to the lady at the front desk I discovered that the tire was not still flat, it was flat again. Apparently the bike rental place had fixed the tire but it had gone flat again in between the time that they left and I returned. I was pissed.

I called up the rental place and raised holy hell. I told them that I should be refunded the price of the day´s rental since I had essentially lost a day of riding due to faulty equipment. The manager of the bike rental place didn´t seem to agree. He kept stating that they could not be held liable for punctures that I made while riding. I tried, to no avail, to explain that I hadn´t even ridden the bike before it got it´s second flat.

We finally agreed that they would come and repair the bike again. I wasn´t going to waste any time waiting for them, so I left by the subway to go to the beach with Scott. When we returned several hours later I found a different bike in place of the one that I had rented. They had upgraded me to the next level of mountain bike. Although I was still upset that I had lost a day of riding I was happy to see that the company was at least attempting to make me happy.

The happiness didn´t last long. When I got on the bike to ride to the Brewfest I discovered that the tires, although not flat, barely had enough air in them to support my weight. Granted I probably weigh a little more than the average European male, but I would still expect to have a bike delived with the proper amount of air pressure. I rode the bike to the same gas station that I had found earlier that day and filled the tires up with the proper amount of air.

After that I was convinced that I had finally gotten over my bike problems. I was riding to an event with free beer and all was well with the world. That is until my rear tire went flat just as I passed the conference center. I was so frustrated that I felt like I wanted to hit something.

I was determined not to be too late for the Brewfest and to not spend my entire evening dealing with the flat tire. So I just parked the bike by the convention center and walked the remaining 2 miles to the restaurant where the Brewfest was being hosted.

The only problem with leaving the bike where it broke down was that it just meant that I had to walk it home later at night. By the time that I got back to the area where I had parked the bike it was 2 in the morning and I was pretty sauced up. Walking the bike the 1.5 miles to the hotel was not all that much fun in that condition.

I was able to get ahold of the bike rental place earlier in the evening and they are going to try one more time to repair the bike. The manager swore that this never happens to them. He even went so far as to ask whether or not I had this problem with bikes back at home... as if I had anything to do with the tires going flat. I hope that I don´t have any more problems like this tomorrow.