The strong rainfall has flushed a lot of debris onto the countryside lanes, in particular in the hills where the erosion of the geology flushes razor sharp flint stone debris onto the road. In some instances the flint and the chalk, which it is embedded in, deposits as calcified beds on the roads, with flint splinters sticking out like nails from an oriental nailbed. Last Sunday morning I hit one of those on a descent at 55km/h and got the front and rear tyre exploding at the same time. Twenty minutes later my clubmate Dan got the next puncture. This same fate seems to catch up with many many riders at the moment, you hardly find a stretch of road where there is not any group of riders helping and waiting one of their own puncture victims. I have had 17 punctures since last October.
With a portable lightweight mini-pump you really don't get the right pressure back on the tyre so that any further riding is very compromised. With a single spare innertube you don't even get through a 4 hour ride anymore. You need two tubes, patching set, piece of tyre fabric (for lateral cuts in the side wall of the tyre) and 2 CO2 cardridges, plus your emergency pump. With your usual kit, containing mobile phone, housekeys, spoke key, allenkeys and tyre levers and of course your food supply you almost end up requiring a backpack to carry all this stuff. Looking forward to normal training days again, on clean roads.
