When I set out on today’s bike riding following the “May Park Community Center – Huffman” route everything seemed to be perfect. I started earlier than usual at 10:34 am, the weather was great at 82 degrees and sunny. That lasted until the 12.6 mile point when I heard the sound cyclists dread, a sudden loud hiss of air escaping from a tire. A photo of the Elemnt screen when the flat happened.

Fortunately I was in Walden on quiet streets. I walked about 100 feet to a shady spot under a tree and sat down on the curb with the tools to fix the flat. Inspecting the tire I didn’t find anything sticking out so I used my tire tool to start to get the tire bead off the rim. That is when disaster struck. The yellow Pedro’s tire tool slipped and hit my left thumb nail bending it back far enough to separate the nail with blood coming out. On top of that it hurt. I got the blood to stop and went back to fixing the flat which was hard to do with my thumb hurting. Pulling the tube out of the tire I spotted the hole right away. It looked just like the last flat when the tire was cut. Positioning the tube on the tire I found the spot with the cut. It was big enough to cause a problem if I didn’t put a boot in. The bad part was I couldn’t get the boot to stay over the cut so I dabbed some patch glue on the inside of the tire and on the boot. Waiting for the glue to dry took a few minutes. Putting the boot inside the dry on matching the the two glue surfaces held the boot in place as I placed the tube inside the tire and mounted the bead. Pumping up the tire air stayed in and I got ready to get back on the bike after putting all of the tools in their places. A photo of the Elemnt screen as I got ready to start biking again.

24 minutes to fix the flat. Not to bad considering the bent nail, boot installation and waiting for the glue to dry.

I stopped at the Chevron station at Atascocita Shores Drive and FM 1960 to clean the blood off my thumb and the glue from my finger. The thumb pain had subsided and with the cleanup it wasn’t looking too bad.

From there the ride proceeded as planned and without surprises. After making the u-turn on FM 1960 east of the Liberty County line I rode back to Huffman-Eastgate Road. Not far from FM 1960 I stopped and took these photos.

Around the bend ahead I made the right turn onto Wily road and headed to May Community Center and Park. I stopped long enough to take these photos.

On the right out of the pictures are a number of baseball diamonds. Reading the sign shows some of the events this month. I didn’t go inside to get water as I normally do because I had enough to get to Huffman where I planned to take a rest break at the Chevron station.

Arriving at the Chevron I sat on the plastic milk crate in the shade after getting a Greensheet newspaper to cushion it with. Drinking the ice water was good as I checked my email on my phone. I was looking for an email from Ambient Weather to return what I thought was a bricked ObserverIP unit but no email yet. About 15 minutes and I was back on the Canyon to finish the ride. Back on FM 1960 riding west I noticed the cadence wasn’t showing on the Elemnt computer. Checking the sensor connection it wasn’t active. I stopped at the Shell station and messed with it. At first it didn’t respond but then it did. It worked for the rest of the ride but it might be time to replace the battery.

Continuing the ride I went through Atascocita Shores and Kings River on the way back to W. Lake Houston Parkway. As I rode across the bridge over the river I noticed two men wearing bright vests and measuring things. One was looking up at the trees. Some of them hang over the road and maybe they were planning on cutting them back or maybe something to do with Hurricane Harvey flooding. I finished the ride at 2:23 pm. Without the flat I would’ve probably finished before 2 pm.

Weather during the bike ride: start 83 (73% humidity), a few clouds, wind W 9 mph. Finish 92 (47% humidity), a few clouds, wind SW 7 mph.

Back home I called Ambient Weather Tech Support and the man walked me through a hard reset process that fixed the “bricked” ObserverIP unit. My new weather station is back online.

No rain and lots of heat in the forecast. Unusual for May but great for bicycling.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary