My second day on the road had been very satisfying. I had moved along quickly despite the rain, and almost 2/3 of the miles were through parts of Indiana I had never ridden before. I had great nights’ sleep in the tent, and the campground had been very quiet.
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| A rarity, sunrise visible from my tent |
I was up early and enjoyed a quick oatmeal breakfast à la JetBoil. I make my own travel oatmeal, with 1/2 a cup of quick oats, a heaping teaspoon of brown sugar, and a couple of tablespoons of dried cranberries, all mixed in a small baggie. To prepare it, I just dump the mix into my collapsible silicone bowl and add a cup of boiling water and mix, and then cover the bowl with my plate for 2-3 minutes. Along with my fresh fruit— apples, oranges, and grapes— it’s a good first breakfast. After finishing breakfast, I sliced up an apple, and that went into a reusable Stasher silicone zip-lock bag for on-the-road snacking. My trail mix is another larger Stasher bag. Along with being reusable, the silicone bags don’t break open at the wrong time and are very easy to reach into while moving.
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| Another cloudy start, with rain to follow |
Unfortunately, there was more rain in the forecast for later in the morning, so I moved right along to break camp. By 7:45, I was wrapping up my last pit stop to brush my teeth on the way out of camp when I realized my rear tire was soft. Since I had fixed the flat using CO2 2 days earlier, I assumed it was just the bleed-off, so I topped it off with a frame pump. I was quickly on my way, with just a quick photo op on the gate sign.
The day’s plan was a new route for the ride home, with an estimated 75 miles. Rather than head south after leaving the campground, I first headed east. At 10 miles, I would turn south on the Nickel Plate Trail. I have ridden sections of trail all the way from Kokomo to Rochester over a number of rides, but today I would be continuing through Kokomo, with a straight south route to home from there.
As I had ridden east, the skies to the northwest had grown darker, and there were intermittent sprinkles of rain. I turned onto the trail a few miles north of Bunker Hill, and by the time I entered the small village, the rain was starting to increase its intensity. I paused to button things up and put on my rain jacket, and checked my weather app. Unlike the day before, it was just solid green with no red and yellow, so I decided to just keep rolling.
It was soon a hard rain with visibility dropping, but with no real shelter available and no traffic to worry about, I just kept pedaling. At one point, over the sound of falling rain, I heard a loud metallic jingle near my rear wheel and stopped to see what it might be. Everything appeared to be fine on my bike, and then I just happened to glance down the trail, and 15 feet behind my bike, my bag of tent stakes were in the middle of the trail. The cord lock on the tent stuff had apparently loosened in the rain; I was just glad they had made so much noise when they fell out. (And this got me thinking about another solution, and one that would also deal with a soon-drenched tent.)
It was starting up after securely repacking my stakes that I realized I had a soft rear tire, again. It was obvious now that this was not a CO2 issue. Still without shelter, I just topped off the rear tire to 60 lbs, and was very happy I had a MightyMorph pump for doing this in the rain. I figured I would just ride and top off the tire every 10 to 15 miles until the rain stopped or I found shelter.
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| The first flat of the day |
Five miles later, the trail went under US-31, and I decided the overpass was as good a shelter as any. I repeated the ritual of unhooking my panniers and my rack load, and started to change the tire. I again found a pin-hole leak in the tube with no obvious stone or glass chip in the tire. But lining up the tube and tire, and running my fingers inside the tire case, I finally found the culprit. This tire had a layer of Kevlar fabric in the tire between the inner tube and the tire casing for flat protection. What I found was a stiff strand of Kevlar, with a sharp edge poking up.
On my previous inspections, I had been looking for glass or stone chips, and hadn’t suspected it could be the tire itself. In looking back, I realized I had a couple of similar flats over the past year and a half with the same tire, where I hadn’t found a stone chip or glass in the tire. With the apparent mystery resolved, I put some Gorilla Tape (part of my touring tool kit) over the rough spot, remounted the tire, and inflated it with CO2. The tire inflated properly, but the bead refused to seat, even when I over-pressed it manually and shot water between the tire and rim. Figuring it would pop in with some more miles, I reloaded my gear and resumed my ride into Kokomo.
At the north edge of Kokomo, the Nickel Plate Trail came to an end, and Kokomo’s Industrial Heritage Trail began. This 5.8-mile trail, built by the city of Kokomo, would take me through a number of parks, the center of downtown, and through some historic manufacturing areas on a combination of multi-use paths, sidewalks, and streets. It made for some interesting riding, though the southern terminus of the trail was a little confusing. I managed to find my way to some southbound streets before making my way to McDonald’s for lunch.
While eating, I checked my weather app and it looked like I was going to have more rain in the next couple of hours. I wasn’t worried about charging my lights, but I did top off my iPhone for the afternoon as I ate. As I got back on the road after lunch, I was now on streets, and with my speed picking up, the off-center tire was becoming more of an annoyance. After topping off my Gatorade for the final push, I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to make one more try to seat the tire by over-pressuring it. I began pumping, but rather than the ping of the bead seating, I was rewarded with the BANG of a blowout, as a 3” section of the sidewall blew out, and my rear tire, and another tube were both totaled.
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| Flat #2, and the tire is toast |
I am not sure if the age of the tire (2000+ miles over 20 months), riding it improperly seated for a dozen miles, or just the repeated overpressure mounting that was the cause; and in any case, it didn’t matter. I already had the new tires at home, to be installed after this ride. And I always tour with a folding spare tire in my pack, and I still had 1 spare tube and patches, so I wasn’t stranded just yet. So for the third time this trip, and second time today, I began the process of changing a flat tire. (This is my all-time worst experience with tires in a single trip.)
The new tire was a little bit stubborn going on, and I finally had to start over after recentering the rim strip, but it finally mounted and reassuringly seated true with normal pressure. But all told, I lost almost an hour, and by the time I came to the south edge of Kokomo, I was being chased by a squall line of horizontal rain, 40-45 mph hour winds, gusts, and falling tree limbs. I pulled off the road into the driveway of a dark home, and tucked myself under the eaves in front of their garage door, and watched the storm continue.
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| Slow clearing sky's after the rain |
After about 10 minutes, I was startled by the garage door behind me beginning to open. I turned around and was greeted by the homeowner, who had noticed me on his security camera. He invited me into the garage, and I was completely out of the rain. He was a work-from-home engineer for a large IT company, and we chatted for a bit while the wind and rain continued. He had done some mountain biking and was curious about my 920 and bike touring in general. Almost 20 minutes passed as we chatted while the last of the red bands finally passed on to the south and west. It was going to be raining for a bit, but by now it was almost 3:30, and I still had about 40 miles to home. I thanked him for his hospitality and started out again.
I left the last Kokomo neighborhood, and after a few miles the scattered houses gave way to rural farmland. A light rain continued to fall, and the southwest sky was still dark, but moving way from me. I was still at least 35 miles of riding from home, and more rain was forecast for the early evening, so I had some decisions to make.
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| All smiles with my wife and change of clothes. |
I had been on talking and texting with my wife Linda throughout the morning and afternoon, and she was watching the weather as well. I was also riding with only a patch kit now, no spare tubes, so another flat was not going to be fun. We finally decided to meet at a tractor dealership we both knew on US-31, which we could both reach in about an hour; she would need to leave work and switch her car for our Caravan in order to have room for my bike and gear.
With that decision made, I settled in for my last 12 miles of riding. Overall, it had been a great few days on the road, despite the rain and the tire issues. It was good to know that I had everything along that I had needed to keep rolling. It was frustrating to know I had the new tires at home, but I had made the decision to do all that work later, in preparation for a longer ride later in the summer, and wanted all the work at one time to seem more efficient. I had been able to shake down a bunch of new gear, which would make the next trip easier, and also think through some ways to lighten and optimize my load for longer trips in the future.
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| Drying out gear after 2 raining days |
Stats
- Departed 7:43 AM
- Distance 49.7 miles
- Average MPH 11.0
- Riding Time 4:30 / Total Time 9:13
- 849 Feet Ascending
- 753 Feet Descending
- Total Distance: 193.9 miles
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