I had two goals for today’s bike ride: ride 40+ miles and test the new Rode Wireless ME mic’s with the GoPro. I should’ve added a third one: no flat tire. My Canyon Endurace might develop a complex after a flat tire on the last two bike rides. This saga began as I rolled away at 8:52 AM to ride my Kingwood – Stroker Road – Kingwood route. The weather forecast called for 100+ this afternoon and I wanted to be back home before that happened. The last time I attempted this route I ran into road resurfacing on Stroker Road and changed the route to Kingwood – Hare Cook Road – Kingwood to avoid part of the ground up road surface. I forgot about that until riding through Walden and hoped there had been enough time for the work to be done. Good news! When I got to Stroker Road new smooth asphalt covered the rough road and no route change was necessary. I biked 45.07 miles accomplishing one goal. I also earned the Strava Local Legend on 2100 N bound.

All was going great until 31.4 miles riding north on FM 2100 when the rear tire went flat suddenly. My first thought was the heat and hot road loosened the patch from last Friday but alas there was a bent staple or nail sticking out of the rear tire. Again I walked about 1/2 mile to find a quiet shaded spot to attempt to fix the flat. At Spanish Cove Drive I walked to the parking lot of Hilditch Financial Services to the shade at the back of the building to begin the repair. A lady came out and I asked if it was okay to work on the tire and she said yes. Another lady came out and we chatted while I worked on the tube. A third lady came out and asked if I needed a pump but I told her I had one. Then a man walked out talking on his phone. After he finished he asked if I wanted some water and I said yes. He took my water bottle and filled it with nice cold water. Multiple acts of kindness just like Friday. During this I applied the patch, put the tube back in the tire and tried to air it up but the tire wouldn’t hold air. I probably missed the tiny hole from the staple. I took the tube out and pulled off a patch but it was the one from Friday, not today. At this point I decided to replace the tube. My spare tube was a TPU one I bought a couple of months ago for just this purpose. TPU tubes are small and fit in the seat back easily. I aired it up some and put in the tire, mounted the tire and finished pumping it up. The tire bead snapped onto the rim twice and I added a few more pumps, squeezed the tire and was happy. I put the wheel back on the Canyon and rode to FM 2100 to continue the ride.

Arriving in Huffman I thought I needed more ice and stopped at the Chevron station on the corner of FM 1960 and FM 2100. It had been a long time since my last visit in the store but the man behind the counter was very friendly when I asked about getting ice. I added two water bottles of ice to my CamelBak and then partially filled the water bottle with ice and water. I thanked him as I walked outside. As I was standing by my bike to leave he came out and asked how far I was riding and where from. He told me he rides a bike but not very far. We fist bumped and shook hands before I rode away. The rest of the ride went as planned and I finished at 1:40 PM about an hour later than expected.

Yesterday the Rode Wireless ME mic’s arrive and I played around with them to figure out the settings. I added a dead cat muff on the TX mic that attached to the CamelBak chest strap for today’s ride but didn’t use the dead cat muff on the RX mic on the GoPro. Some of the audio has a lot of wind noise and I wonder if the RX mic was the cause. I added the dead cat muff and will test it on tomorrow’s ride. Overall I think the TX mic was good.