Day 57, Monday, June 16: Another zero

Twin Falls, Idaho

The day started well enough. We awoke at our usual time and were on the road by 6:15. We made a stop at Walmart, then had breakfast at Duck Donuts. They put their donuts and breakfast sandwiches in individual boxes, and the servers are forced to ask if everything looks good before closing them up. It was just a little too precious. They are just donuts and breakfast sandwiches, after all. 

We headed due west out of town. Our destination was Glenns Ferry, 70 miles away. It was ambitious in the heat, but we had a couple of places to stay that were closer if we needed to. 

We did not make it to Glenns Ferry. In fact, we made it just 13 miles into our ride when I got a flat on my front tire. I can change a tube in 20 minutes or so, including unloading the bags from the bike and loading them back up again, so we did not lose too much time.

As we started to ride again, John exclaimed "You won't believe this!" I'm pretty sure he included an expletive. Then, as he was changing his tire, I realized my rear tire was going flat. So I started changing that one. Eventually we were ready to go again, but as we got underway I realized that both my front and rear tires were going flat.

When you have a flat, it is important to find the cause. You do not want to leave something embedded in the tire that can puncture your new tube. I did that, because I am not a complete moron. However, I must be a partial moron because removing one goat head thorn from your tire is not enough. I had apparently run through a patch of them, and there were several in both tires.

We were running out of tubes at this point so we decided to scrap the day's ride and return to Twin Falls. There we could have a professional fix the flats and examine the wheels and tires to insure nothing else was wrong.

We decided we had to impose on Kathy, our Warm Showers host from the night before. She is known as the River Angel in the BASE jumping community at Twin Falls, and she seems to really enjoy helping people. 

She answered the phone and knew right away we needed help. "What do you need?" She agreed to come pick us up in her truck and drop us off at a bike shop. As far as I'm concerned she has a new nickname, Road Angel.

At Bull Moose Bike Shop in downtown Twin Falls, Mike helped us out. He carefully examined both my tires, changed the tubes, and filled them with some kind of green slime that acts as a sealant when you have a puncture.


We were not going to leave town in the afternoon, so we went to have lunch and watch some soccer. We could have imposed on Kathy again and ask if we could stay at her place, but she had done enough for us. We got a hotel for the night. Later we took a Lyft back downtown for dinner. 

If I am completely honest, I probably needed the zero. We had some big days recently and I was feeling fatigued. I slept well that night.

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