Two rides in one happened today. This is not what I planned though. The ride started off as a normal ride going south on W. Lake Houston Parkway before I swung west and down to Eagle Springs. So far so good. From Eagle Springs I went to Walden at Lake Houston and then across Lake Houston and I was still biking right along. To vary the route I went on E. Lake Houston Parkway north from FM1960. There sure are a lot of direction names in the streets. Turning east on Smith Road I was still doing great. The temperature was not real hot and there was patches of shade until I got to FM2100.

I made a right hand turn onto FM2100 and rode about 2/10ths of a mile and I noticed my rear tire go soft. Fortunately I was only about 2/10ths of a mile from the Huffman Chevron station where I stop frequently. Taking a break to cool down I figured I would fix the flat when I finished my drink and snack. This is where ride #2 starts.

Inspecting the rear tire didn’t take long to find the problem. A piece of metal was sticking out of the tire opposite the valve. This is the culprit:

Rear tire invader

As I loosened the tire from the rim and pulled the tube out the metal stayed in the tire casing. I had to use a plastic tire tool to push it through far enough for me to pull it out the rest of the way. Several days ago I had a thought that I should check the glue in the patch kit in my seat bag but I forgot to do that. Needless to say the tube was dried out and no glue came out. So I moved to plan B; replace the tube with the spare in the seat bag. So I put the tube in the tire and mounted it back on the rim. Starting to pump it didn’t take too long to see that the tube was not holding air. At first I though the pump was not working but it was okay. I now realized the spare tube also had some kind of a hole so I am back to not being able to patch the spare tube either.

Plan C is next except I saw an email on my phone that said AT&T was having problems with their wireless network in the Houston area. Plan C is to call my wife and ask her to bring a floor pump, bike toolbox and a spare tube. Thankfully I was able to call her and about 25 minutes later she arrived. To be safe I asked her to stay until I got the tire fixed. That was a good idea as the first new patch kit I opened had a problem; the glue was dried up in it too. Finding another new patch kit (glad I bought several of them) and the glue was still good. So I started to patch the original flat tube but as I turned the tube around I saw the medal piece had went through both sides of the tube. In the past I have not had success patching a tube like this. So I threw that tube away (it had several patches already) and grabbed the new tube my wife brought. Finally I got the tire back on the rim, aired it up and was ready to bike back home. I told my wife everything was fixed and she could leave. If you look at the interval times below, interval 5 lasted 2 hours, well over the others. That is why I call this two rides in one.

Back riding now I could tell the temperature increase from earlier and when I got home the weather station showed 99 degrees with 36% humidity. This accounts for the lack of sweat on the second ride. Prior to the tire fiasco I was pretty sweaty but the 11+ miles from Huffman to home was a lot drier. The full route was 35.19 miles at a 16.1 mph average speed. When I checked at 30 miles I averaged 16.2 mph so I only lost .1 mph on the side streets in Kingwood. I almost beat my wife home because she stopped at Burger King for lunch.

The moral of this story: check your patch kit for dried up glue often, especially in the summer heat.

Now that I am home I will see if I can fix the spare tube that would not hold air in Huffman.

Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com maps and metrics.

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