(Wed, 3/5/25; 28 miles, 510 feet of climb)
I am sure glad I had a short day today with the headwind — I got my first FLAT TIRE! And my first rescue by a trail angel.
I started off the day well, with my most solid night of sleep ever. I didn’t even hear the rooster crowing at the parsonage! Nor did I hear Debbie leave at zero-dark-thirty to go teach kindergarten at the Lutheran school on the Apache reservation.
I did see Pastor Joe, though, and he fried me up a couple of home-grown eggs, served with toast made from Debbie’s sourdough bread.
I spent some time looking at weather forecasts. I knew that today would be a moderate but direct headwind all day. But holy cow — tomorrow is going to be 25-35 mph winds, with gusts up to 50!! It won’t be headwinds — mostly cross and a little tailwind — but I’m not sure it’s even safe to bike in those conditions! I might need to leave super early tomorrow and get miles in before the wind picks up. Unfortunately, there are ZERO towns the entire day tomorrow.
Today, on the other hand, I finally had a nice selection of small towns. The first town wasn’t really a town, but rather just a convenience store, Red’s. I walked up to the refrigerated section and saw my favorite: chocolate milk! I walked up and put it on the counter along with a bar. The cashier walked the milk back to the fridge for some reason. I asked, was it expired? She said yes, in November. Yikes. Good thing she checked.
The next stop was Meg’s, which was a really nice place. I sat at a counter with an outlet so I could recharge things. I also got a rare salad! It was a salad with crispy chicken, but was really a pretty large serving of chicken with a few lettuce leaves. I also got “fry bread” for the first time. I had seen it on signs. It’s as good as it sounds.
Just a few miles later, I suddenly felt unstable. I stopped and felt my rear tire –– I had my first flat of the trip! Last year I had five flats in the first two weeks, so I stopped in New Orleans and put on Schwalb Marathon Tour tires. I have not had a flat since, in the previous thousand miles. I put on a brand new tire for this trip, so I thought I was invincible.
Really, though, it couldn’t have happened at a better time. I shudder to think of how a flat would affect a day when I was racing a sunset, going up steep hills, facing high winds, or just cold. Today was a pretty pleasant day to get a flat.
I had my bike on its side and slowly rotated the rear wheel, looking for the culprit. Before I could even get the wheel off the bike, a barefoot guy in a pickup pulls up and asks me if I want a ride to town.
His name was Greg, and he goes by “Broken Healer.” He is a minister who follows Jesus, but doesn’t believe in organized religion. I couldn’t turn him down, since bike shops have pumps with gauges and any other tools you need, not to mention experts who do this for a living.
There was only one problem: the “Cycle Path” bike shop on the ACA map was permanently closed. The next best thing Google could offer was Big Five Sporting Goods, so Greg dropped me off there.
Big Five not only had nobody who could service bikes, they wouldn’t even let me use a floor pump unless I bought it. Oh, and a sign that read “No public restrooms.”
But they did have a nice shaded sidewalk, which was much better than the side of the highway, so I got to work. I still couldn’t find any sign of damage, so I tried simply pumping up the tire again with my frame pump. But it slowly leaked out again.
Next, I removed the wheel and pulled out the tube from the tire. I pumped it up to see if I could detect the leak. No dice — I’d need to put it in water to find the bubbles.
With the tire off the wheel, I looked more carefully, squeezing it as I went. Eureka! I found a nasty sharp thorn deeply embedded in the tread. I could hardly see it, but I was eventually able to pull it out with my needle-nose pliers.
Once I was confident I found the source, I just put in a new tube and put it all back together.l and pumped it up. I’ll patch the old tube next time I’m near a bathtub.
Now that I was in town early, I did some shopping for supplies at Walmart and Walgreens. My host for tonight, Kevin, said he wouldn’t be home until 8:00 pm, so I ate a French dip at Arby’s and got some drone videos on the way to Kevin and Ginny’s house.
So my short day was even shorter than planned. That’s good, because I am going to bed soon and plan to get up super early to get a jump start on the windiest day yet. (Kevin said that sometimes if it gets too windy, they even shut down I-10 and reroute traffic on the little two-lane highway through Safford. Which would be pretty bad for someone trying to bike that highway.)
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TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “CANTBIRD” = CA-AZ-NM-TX Bike Ride, my own nickname for the 1000 miles on the western half of the Southern Tier Bicycle Route, from San Diego to El Paso, using maps from ACA (Adventure Cycling Association). (I did the 1500-mile eastern half in March 2024, which I called GUMBIRD [Gulf of Mexico Bike Ride].)
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LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):