Day 15: a bad impress on tubeless tires
After yesterday’s entry, I chatted with Jacob and a hiker called Jamie. Jamie is a 60 year old and the first hiker I met. Apparently a lot of the long distance hikers had to abandon their hikes due to wildfires.
Cycled with Jacob for an hour this morning before parting ways. The cycling today was far more hilly than I was expecting. Garmin said I did 9 climbs today though each wasn’t so bad, in sum it was a fair bit of climbing. It was also my longest cycle of the trip so far at 73 kms.
Up until now I have had mostly peanut butter based lunches but branched out to Nutella today. Can’t believe this is a noteworthy point but here we are.
I am not normally one for Mac Donnels but was passing one and decided it would be a cheap source of calories. So I stopped. There were 2 different groups of bikepackers there. One was a young guy that just did a proper true hike and was now biking back to San Francisco. The others were a German couple, Phil and Julia, biking to San Diego. The German couple were aiming at the same campground as me so they suggested we should cycle together. “We cycle slowly,” they said. Utter bollocks. Never believe a German when they say such things. This was the fastest I cycled all trip.
At one point, myself and Phill were cycling next to each other and he was explaining all the benefits of tubeless tire setup. I kid you not, not 10 minutes later, he got a massive puncture and the sealant didn’t work. We then spent the next 2 hours on the side of the road trying to get his tubeless tire working again. We couldn’t get enough air into the tire quickly enough for it to pop into place and seal. Eventually I gave him one of my spare tubes that was too small but got us to camp. Let’s just say that this wasn’t a good first impression for me on tubeless tires. But I may have to go tubeless in Mexico for the Baja divide.
Arrived at Tugman state park around 5pm which is my lateest I have arrived at camp. Jacob is here too. Fair bit of stuff to do so going to cut this entry short here ---->.
