Felix Wong Fights the Mosquitoes and Flats through the Snow

Hi this is Felix Wong. Calling at 2:24 on Monday, June 23rd. I had a hellish morning. Today, I woke up and I pumped up my tires. My rear one was really low on air. Makes me wonder how long I had been riding on a flat tire. So anyhow, I changed the tube in that and went about a mile and got another flat. I tried using one of my spare tubes and that one also had a flat. Long story, I now have one spare tube after having what I thought I had 4 good spare tubes but apparently one of them was faulty in that tube pack. Then on the way to Flagg Ranch, there's that long climb. The climb was actually wasn't too bad. At the top, there was a lot of snow, lot of mud, and thank goodness that most of that on the downhill portion. The worst part was mosquitoes. Anytime I would get off my bike and be trying to push it through the snow, they would converge on me. Even though I was wearing clothing from head to toe, I got bit a lot of times. They can bite right through my cycling jersey and my arm warmers _______ from using bug spray. The mosquitoes are just really vicious out there. I also had massive pieces of chain suck where my chain would not release from the chain ring. I ultimately fixed that by using a stick and some creek water to clean my chain ring and then re-lubing the chain. I still have some chain suck, which was not good because I would being walking and then trying to escape from the mosquitoes, I'd get on my bike and I'd be cranking away and then my chain would get stuck and then I would have to stop and the mosquitoes would get me. Anyhow I'm at Flagg Ranch and I got some ice cream and a coke and hopefully I'm good to go for another 40 miles or so. I'll call later, Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-23 15:28:47 EST. ) (NOTE: This one was really, really hard to hear. Two of us worked on it at my office and just had to guess at some of it so don't be suprised if it is a little different when Joe posts it no mtbcast.)