Day 16: Reality check
After yesterday’s entry, I caught up with the German couple again. So when Phill got a puncture I stopped to help him while Julia didn’t notice and continued cycling. She stopped when she noticed but was too far ahead and couldn’t see us. She must have looked panicked as someone stopped to make sure she was ok. Apparently a German cyclist died 2 years prior on the same stretch of road that we were on. And it was the dad of that driver who stopped to make sure Julia was ok. It brought home how dangerous the roads can be. With this in mind, I wore my high vis today with full rear lights on.
The day started like the last few days, with pumping my rear tire. I think it must be some kind of really slow leak. Just as the tire reached 50 psi, the pump cracked in half. Fuck. Well at least the tire is pumped enough for today. Will try to get a bike shop later today to buy a new one. The worst case is to get to the next camp and borrow someone else’s pump tomorrow morning.
Cycling was easy enough this morning. When I hit the first town I found an outdoors shop that had a cheap $20 bike pump. Perfect.
20 minutes later on the outskirts of the town, I see a Walmart to pick up stuff for camp that night. I came back to a fully flat tire. I guess the slow puncture has become, well, less slow. I guess it’s time to deal with this properly.
Sitting outside a Walmart is not the worst place to do some bike work in fairness. I decided the easiest thing to do was just change the tube. I gave away one yesterday so I still had one. And the new pump is so much slower and worse than the last one but it works.
After this town, there were lots of hills and climbing. I think maybe I didn’t eat enough or maybe I am in need of a rest day as the kms were slow going. Jacob, the Spanish guy from the last 2 campsites caught up to me somewhere in those hills and we cycled together to camp.
The campground was closed to everyone but hikers and bikers. There was a note saying that the next campsite is pretty far so hikers + bikers can use the horse area.
The German couple arrived a few minutes after us so we all cooked dinner together.
After dinner I finally managed to get my profile setup on warm showers. That is a big Todo item check off. Hopefully I can rely on this in the coming months.
Was hoping to take a rest day here tomorrow to let the body rest but the campground is basically closed and is 1 night max for hikers/bikers, plus there is very little facilities. So tomorrow I will cycle.
