After countless claims of how nice it was to have tubeless tires, I was brought back to reality last night.

Me and my "24 Hours of Adrenalin" teammates, rode out to the end of Sinbad Canyon from the Golden Eagle Parking Lot, in Pleasanton, CA. (13 miles R/T and 1,700 ft of gain) after work last night.

Just enough time where we would not need lights.

About 1/2 way there, I got a bad "leak" and my rear tire starting gushing air. Apparently the hole was too big to seal or the Slime was too watered down or something. I got ready to insert a tube and then the tire stopped losing air. With the reduced pressure I decided to move on. By the time we reached the end of Sinbad, my tire was almost flat. On the way back, I stopped 3-4 times to re-inflate moving along OK with a rear tire that mushed back and forth.

I stopped to inflate one last time at the top of the last descent (2 miles to go) and instantly snapped off the valve.

We took off the tire, removed the valve stem, inserted a tube and started to pump.

The tire would not inflate.

Starting to get dark.

At this time a cyclist (Tom) stopped by and offered to help.

We took off the tire and it was determined that the tube was bad, and it, too, leaked. (Again!)

My friend supplied a second tube, we installed it and tried to pump it up.

Getting darker.

The pump (we only had mine) wasn't working right but we fixed it after removing debris from the "break off".

Keep in mind that during these 2 tube installations there was SLIME everywhere...

2nd tube installed, inflated and wheel put back on, we tried to continue.

Darker.

Start descent, but now, I had no rear brakes....?

Determined that rear wheel was not seated properly and I had compressed pistons on the rear disk brake, so when we tried to re-install the wheel, closed pistons prevented us from doing so.

In the dark, I was able to (blindly) press pistons back to closed positions (Topeak tool!) I kinda knew (but could not see) how brakes were set up due to replacing pads a few weeks ago, and Tom was able to get the wheel back on and brakes acted normally.

Real Dark.

We followed Tom down. Amazing that, no matter how much you know the trail, in the dark it doesn't matter. (Ruts, Rocks, Dips, Etc.) Goal was to stay away from Left side (cliff). My 2nd descent in total darkness.

It was so dark, on the way down, I noticed a slight lightening of the trail every few seconds at one point. Just a flash. It was an Airliner's strobe light at 20,000' !!.

Back to truck, home by 8:00...

Can't wait to do it again...

J.