veho interruptus, tire boots, and making the best of the day

Well, my intention was to do Laura OLPH's Hill slug ride today. I got up early to get to her house for some extra miles, and we left to head for the Pennington group start. On the way, we picked up Peter G:

...and we met some of the usual suspects, some probably-soon-to-be-regular Hill Slugs (right, Rick?), and some less-familiar faces at Pennington.

...and off we went.

We hadn't gotten mile when I heard the hissing and regular thump that I thought meant I had a leaf caught in the wheel... but no; I'd run over something that cut a 12mm (1/2") gash in the tire, and I had a righteous flat. It needed a boot. I stuck a folded ATM receipt in the tire, pumped up a new tube, and proceeded.

We got about two miles further on when the same thing happened again. This time, I booted the tire with a dollar bill, and left the rest of the group to continue Laura's ride; I went more-or-less gingerly back to the car on my last tube and CO₂. I made it to the car (over a different route than we usually take; you can see my ride page here), and drove home in a miasma of sulks and feeling-sorry-for-myself about missing this ride.

At home, I changed the tire. Here's the inside and outside of the tire showing the gash:

The ATM receipt that I used for the first boot. You can see four holes have been worn through the paper where the tube worked through the gash in the tire again:

The dollar bill. Although the tube did not work through, the friction at the fold basically wore a gash in the bill.

Park Tool sells tire boots... but they also sell some self-stick tube patches that are next door to useless for actually keeping air in the tube, but would have been just the thing for this temporary repair, I think.

So when I got over my grumpiness a bit, I noted that the weather had not appreciably deteriorated (au contraire, in fact), so I went out and got in a few more miles over one of my usual routes. While on that ride, I met The Excellent Wife (TEW) on HER ride; we talked about chores for the rest of the day, and she made the suggestion of a late lunch date (I do not lightly call her "excellent"). So here I am, fed, watch fixed, drowsing off listening to the laundry, and about to spend a few bucks at Jenson USA, a vendor with inexpensive tubes (I buy 'em ten at a time) and free shipping for orders over $50. $50? That's a challenge to which I think I can rise.

And that part of the title you don't understand is Latin. It will do for "interrupted ride" until somebody comes up with something better.