This morning I walked my wife to the garage as she left for a “girls day out”, crushed some aluminum cans and started to walk back into the house. As my normal custom I pasued to squeeze the rear tire on my Motobecane Le Champion CF road bike. Oops! It felt soft. This tire accumulated iver 4,000 miles and I wanted to get a few more but I took the wheel off the bike, walked out into the sun and began to inspect the tread for the cause of the leak. Nothing showed up as far as a puncture but I found two spots where the casing threads peaked through the tread. This means the tire needs to be replaced. I am riding the Pineywoods Purgatory tomorrow and I want to avoid any reason for a flat. Some of the roads are not that smooth and the 72 mile route goes on some low traffic roads. There are two wood surfaced bridges that would like to grab a weak tire.

So I reached into my inventory of reserve tires and tubes. The tube on the rim contained 5 patches so figured replacing it would be a good idea. I had a Qtube 700c x 23-25mm tube with a 32mm stem in my reserve. The patched tube had a very long stem for aero rims so the shorter stem will look better. The replacement tire is a Continental Gatorskin 700 x 25mm. Based on the performance of the old tire these survive the shoulder debris better than any other tires I used so far so why go with the tried and true. I mounted the new tire and tube, pumped it up and started to put the wheel back on the bike but I stopped. I saw a section where the tire bead did not catch the rim probably because it was on the back side of the wheel as I moved the tire bead on the front edge of the rim. I let the air out, moved the bead onto the rim and aired it up. The shiny new tire looked great so I could now get ready for today’s ride.

My original plan called for a 45 to 47 mile die today but my wife reminded me of the Pineywoods Purgatory tomorrow so I changed the route to a shorter one going up US59 to New Caney, west on FM1485 turning onto Gene Campbell Road. At the End of Gene Campbell Road I went south on FM1314. I ride this route frequently so I know pretty well what to expect. No surprises today except the speed. The first 5 miles averaged 13.5 mph but this covers the streets to get out of Kingwood and on the open roads. From then on until I got back to Kingwood the 5 mile splits impressed me. The splits-time slide in the gallery shows the breakdown of each 5 mile leg. The 10.0 to 15.0 mile leg averaged 19.0 mph. This might be a record for me.

Today’s route covered 35.66 miles at 16.0 mph average speed. My average speed at these points during the ride:

• 20 miles = 16.2 mph
• 24 miles = 16.4 mph
• 32 miles = 16.4 mph

Hopefully I my ride tomorrow moves along like this. The 72 mile route contains several hills so I will go slower some of the time.

October and this week’s miles now total 128.34. YTD miles total 5425.19. Links to today’s ride at Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com.

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