A Brief Note upon Arrival

I arrived at Dusty & Lisa's in Logan, UT, the final destination of my first riding leg, at 3:30pm today. It was not by bicycle. It was by jeep.

That might seem like an unfortunate ending, but let me assure you, on this end of the saddle, that was a lovely conclusion to my first 700mi.

I woke up today, in an Idaho Mormon farmer's lawn. (No, I didn't party hard with Mormons last night, I asked him and his family if I could pitch my tent there.) I cooked my breakfast and packed up my gear, wet from last night's rain. Then I headed out about 10am. I wasn't worried about drying it out because I only had 65mi to go to get to Logan. I was very excited about getting to Logan to shower, and eat a real meal, and not ride my bike, and hang out with Dusty & Lisa and another friend, Kara. Very excited.

A little more than 20mi into today's riding, the thunderhead I'd been keeping an eye on unleashed itself. This was the second rain I'd ridden through. Kind of fun, really. I threw on my rain coat and nifty yellow lenses and rode. It started to pour. Then about 45min into the rain, coming down a hill into Preston, ID, I heard a loud POP!

That's not a good sound for a cyclist. It means two things: 1) you got a flat (no problem, fix it) 2) that flat is a blowout (uh oh, could be bad).

I walked my bike through the downpour to a nearby house. Before I could knock on the door, a lady came out and asked if I needed to warm up in their garage. I said, "Well, yeah, if you don't mind. Can I fix my flat in here?" She was obliging. Her husband came out and said a few terse things about the weather. I threw on some extra layers to warm up. Then I pulled off my rear wheel. I was interrupted from any further repairs by the Mrs. coming out with a steaming hot plate of Sunday dinner. Mashed potatoes, roast beef, green bean casserole, salad. I think I dropped my tire levers. When I recovered I asked her name. She said, "We're Talbots." I asked her to take a picture of me, that my Mom would really like to see me eating well. She said I sure did have skinny legs. They left me to eat and repair my flat. I ate it all in about 5min.

I quickly discovered that it was a bad sort of blowout. Something had sliced my tire, probably a ways back, before the POP!, about an inch down the center. It looked like any repair wasn't going to work, because there was so little tire structure to hold the tube in, but I layered two tire boots and even threw a granola bar wrapper in there for extra support. It held up to about 20psi, then started to separate like a wound that needs stitches. It wasn't going to work.

(Anyone know how to fix serious tire gashes like this? In an emergency, way back in the bush, there's got to be a repair that can be done when a tire boot doesn't work.)

It didn't take long for me to think of calling Dusty for a ride into Logan. Once I had eaten a good meal, and warmed up a little in the garage, and watched the slanting rain and wind for a while, the prospect of being done for the day (really for the next week) started to grow on me. Rapidly.

I called Dusty. He came out in about 30min and drove me the rest of the way in. Now I get to play around Logan with three friends for the next three days before I fly out for my sis's wedding. I'll be back out in another week and a half to start riding again, with my mom and dad.

I'll tell more about my last three days in a later posting, they were amazing.