After two days off the bike I wanted to get some miles into today before the forecast of rain arrives tomorrow (Saturday). Before I could do that though I need to patch my rear tire. This marks the fourth flat from the tiny wires on the roads. This one just barely peeked out of the tire casing just below the stem. At first I thought the stem might be the cause but on further listening I found the tiny hole in the tube. Moving my finger on the inside of the tire in the area of the stem produced the remains of the wire. I worked for a few minutes to move the wire to the outside of the tire casing to give my pliers enough of an end to pull it out. As I prepared to patch the tube I wondered how many patches can you put on a tube? This particular one sports 5 patches but they span the circumference of the tube. If they bunch up then a new tube will be necessary. My patch kit is getting low on glue but there are 4 small patches left. My patching skills are improving but I would prefer not so much practice.

As I looked at the tire I noticed the tread area getting flat as the it wears off. This might account for the increase in tiny wire flats. I run Continental Gatorskin 700 x 25 tires. I put these on my Motobecane road bike March 21, 2012, with the odometer reading 6439 miles. After today’s ride the odometer shows 10535 miles. That is 4000 miles; I don’t think I ever got that many miles out of my tires. I am nursing the rear tire along with a boot over a small slit but I am amazed. Now the question becomes when do I need to replace the rear tire? Sometimes I rotate the tires but not this set. So the front tire looks much better than the back one. These tires replaced Hutchinson Fusion 2’s with way less miles on them.

Today I took the Eagle Springs – Walden at Lake Houston – Huffman route for 34.47 miles. My speed averaged 15.7 mph but when I checked at the 32 mile point I averaged 16.1 mph. With 2:11:24 riding time and 28:09 time stopped I kept a steady pace. Wind did not present a problem at 5 mph and the mostly cloudy skies pointed to the probable upcoming rain. The temperature feels more fall like and the range for the ride came in at 82 to 89 degrees. This did not keep me from sweating though; I wrung out my wrist bands at the Huffman Chevron generating a stream to the pavement. Cadence averaged 79.9 RPM as well. This table shows my average speed for each 5 mile leg. All but the first and last are 16.0 or more.

579.59 miles in September so far and 5296.85 miles YTD. For additional metrics and map views look at Gramin Connect and RideWithGPS.com

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