Today was my break it if you can day. First I crashed my wife’s computer doing the weekly backup just before I was planning on leaving on my bike ride. So my planned 6:45 AM departure turned into 7:45 AM. I recovered from that and the ride was moving along nicely when I stopped for rest break at a Valero station. After a 32 oz Diet Pepsi and a snack I got ready to leave but my rear tire was flat. Inspecting the tire I found a small piece of wire. Thinking this would not be too hard to fix I pulled the tube out and located the hole. Applying the patch was easy and I put the tube back in the tire. When I put the tube back in I must have pinched the tube and new hole meant another removal and patch applied. I put the tube back in the tire again and pumped it up. The tire stayed under pressure for a couple of minutes and went flat again. Taking the tube out for the third time I see that the patches did not stick properly. The holes were very close together so I figured I had better use my backup tube. So in it went. This time it worked so I was back on the road.

Prior to this I looked down at my watch to check on the time and saw that the digital numbers had disappeared. So my watch was useless but it still beep on the hour even if I could tell what time it was. Fortunately my Garmin Edge 305 has a clock so I relied on it until I got home.

Not many riders out on my route today but I did see a lady riding with a roller blade drafting behind her. This was in a rather remote stretch of FM1485 so I was somewhat surprised. My route was rather remote today so that probably accounts for the lack of other riders.

Weather was nice: 93 degrees when I finished, 9 mph SSE breeze under partly cloudy skies. I snapped this picture when I was turning onto FM2090 to head west.

FM2090 looking West

Today’s ride statistics:

• miles = 62.13
• riding time = 4:02:23
• average pace = 3:54 min/mile
• average speed = 15.4 mph
• average cadence = 80.0 rpm
• max cadence = 103 rpm
• climb 248 ft., descend 208 ft., max elevation 151 ft.
• June miles 116.43
• YTD miles 2157.18

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