When I left home on today’s bike ride “fiasco” was the last thing on my mind. But that is what happened. According to the internet, fiasco is a thing that is a complete failure, especially in a ludicrous or humiliating way. The ride began at 10:54 AM with my route to be what I call “Stroker Road – Huffman”. That didn’t happen. I wanted to make up some of the miles I missed yesterday when I stayed home after the morning rain. That didn’t happen. Instead I changed the route to “Atascocita – Walden – Huffman” when I rode into light rain on Old Atascoita Road east of FM 2100 and made a u-turn. Looking to the south when I got back to FM 2100 I saw rain and it looked like it was coming my way. I rode north on FM 2100 to FM 1960 staying dry but wondering if I would get across Lake Houston without getting rained on.

Biking west on FM 1960 the trees on my left blocked the approaching clouds but when I got onto the Lake Houston Causeway I saw rain around the railroad bridge to the south. I sped up trying to avoid a repeat of Tuesday when the rain caught me in the middle of the lake. Around mile 25.7 I ran over something with my rear tire and it went flat. Over a mile from the west end of the causeway I started walking after a quick check of the tire to see if the cause was evident. I kept my eyes on the rain to the south and when it looked like it would reach me I decided to ride the Canyon, rear flat tire and all, to speed up getting to the west side of the lake and a place to fix the rear flat.

I made it to the closed Chevron station on the SW corner and started working on the rear flat. I didn’t find anything sticking in the tire. I pulled the tube out, pumped it up, ran my hand over it to feel escaping air. Nothing because the air escaped too fast. I folded the tube in places trying to isolate the hole. I finally found two tiny holes, snake bite ones, probably indicating I ran over something and got a pinch flat. I prepared the tube, applied the patch, and pumped air into the tube. It didn’t inflate. I checked the patch and it seemed good. Must be another hole. Folding the tube I search for another hole and found another pinch flat pair of “snake eyes”. I was getting low on patches so I put a smaller one on the second set of holes, put the tube back in the tire and pumped air in. It inflated a little but then went flat. My small patch wasn’t holding. I decided to use the spare tube rather than attempt another patch. The spare tube went in the tire, seated the tire and pumped air in. The tire inflated and held air until I removed the pump hose when all the air went out. The Presta valve had some kind of a problem. I messed with it but gave up without success. I returned to the original tube, removed the tiny patch and put on a larger one. Optimistic that this would work I put the tube in the tire, the tire on the rim and pumped it. The tube did not hold air. I exhausted all of my resources. A fellow church member lives in the apartments across the street so I sent him a text message to see if he could give me a ride home but he didn’t respond. Later I learned he was in a conference and didn’t see my text until later. I called another church member who lived nearby and he came, picked me up and rove me home. In years past my wife would’ve been my rescuer but she can’t do that anymore.

While I worked on the rear tire I heard thunder to the north where I would’ve been riding. One good thing: not riding into rain. I managed to get home without getting rained on.

Continuing the fiasco after I got home, I was preparing to edit the video I shot with my new GoPro Hero10 Black and the video format is not recognized by the Premier Elements program. I download the Handbrake program to convert the video and as I watch the result I see the resolution the GoPro was set on makes me look super wide. I edited the video and that is what you see on YouTube. I changed the GoPro video to a format that Premier Elements can process for the next bike ride.

Being the last day of September this abbreviated 25.71 mile bike ride wraps it up with 835.8 miles, exceeding my 700 mile goal but not on a happy note. The second image shows how 2021 compares to previous years miles to date. 2021 leads all of them.