Day 25

Day 25: October 23, 2021 (LaGrange TX to Anderson TX)

It was very foggy this morning, so we decided to start the day with some bike maintenance.  I had to replace the stem on the gravel road bike (the valve of the stem was broken on Day 24).  That was easy; I took a valve from an old tube and used that.

Both recumbents had flats and the corresponding tires were pretty cut up.  I started with the backup recumbent; a new tire and a new tube.  I could not get the old tire off.  It seemed to be glued on.  After 20 minutes of trying to pry it off, I cut it off.  

I bought a dozen spare tires and tubes for the recumbents, so I would not have to worry about having enough spares.  Six of my spare tires are too big.  Either I ordered the wrong size, or the company shipped the wrong size; whichever, they are too big. So, I only have six new tires.

The new tire was a very tight fit.  It’s tricky getting the Kevlar liner and the tube within the tire with the recumbent in an upright position.  I pinched the tube getting the tire on and I had to start over.  

This time, I laid the recumbent on its side and left the tube completely flat.  This worked better and I got the new tube and tire installed.  For the other recumbent, I just replaced the tube.  That took much less time.

For my primary recumbent, I decided to just replace the tube and hope that the tire would hold for a while longer.

For my road bike, I was going to put platform pedals on it.  We could not find the second pair of platform pedals.  I’m certain I packed two pairs.  The first pair was on the gravel bike.

Beth was going to ride with me today.  I adjusted the gravel bike for her.  I rode the road bike; the roads were not conducive for the recumbents, so I was going to ride my road bike.  Before we could ride, I had to get a pair of bike shoes to work (I damaged my backup pair of shoes on Day 24 hiking through the park and my primary pair hasn’t clipped in since I replaced the clips).  I started with my primary pair.  I took off the rubber outer protection and started making adjustments.  I finally found an adjustment that worked.  The shoes were hard to clip in, but at least I could clip in and, more importantly, unclip.

After 2.5 hours of bike maintenance, we were ready to ride, then a thunderstorm passed through.  We waited the storm out in the RV.  Finally on the bikes, we are riding along and see a sign that says, “low clearance underpass; height 9 ft 6 inches”.  The RV is about 11.5 feet tall.  It won’t fit.

We hade to backtrack and find an alternate route to our destination.  We did and continued on.

I’m finding that the easiest part of the trip is riding the bike.  The bike maintenance, the RV maintenance, getting supplies, loading and unloading the RV, figuring out the route, and finding places to eat are more taxing than riding. 

One last thing.  As I take my primary recumbent off of the rack; I notice that its other front tire is flat.  Shit, flat tire number 9.  Then I looked at the tire for which I replaced the tube in the morning; the tube had pushed through a slice in the tire.  So, that tire needs to be replaced.