Not just another day

It was a special day for us and in celebration we set out on a commemorative bicycle ride.  Just a tiny bit over four miles in the GRider hailed me from behind.

Her rear tire had become flat although only on the bottom (bicycist joke).

We had to walk about half a block to find a shady spot but once we were out of the sun the by now fairly routine procedure for working through this problem proceeded without any further untoward moments.  As all bicyclists should, she carries a spare tube and tire levers in her seat bag.  And she has me.  I carry a mini-pump in my jersey pocket.

There was a sharp rock lodged in the sidewall of her tire about half way around from the valve stem so that is where I began the search of the tube to definitively locate the leak.  It turned out that the sharp rock was NOT the problem.  I pumped some air into the tube and listened for a leak all around that area half way around from the valve but couldn't identify anything.  I turned it over to the GRider while I proceeded with the other parts of the tire changing and she shortly reported a tiny piece of wire sticking out of the tube quite near to the valve.  Usually the tiny piece of wire will penetrate the tire and tube causing the tube to go flat while lodging in the tire.  That is what I was searching for.  This time the tiny piece of wire pulled all the way through the tire and was lodged in the tube.

We got the spare tube in and got enough air in the tire with my mini-pump to allow us to ride to the nearest floor pump.  Which this time was not at home (four miles away) but at County Cycles (only a bit over a mile away).

We had a nice interlude with our bike shop friends and then set out to try to complete our ride.

I sometimes call the trail ride through Grass Lake up to Highway 96 the two tunnel ride.  Here is the GRider passing through the more northern of the two.

Personally, I like the way that one came out.

Along the way we discovered a giant plethora, no dearth, of the big white birds out at the Snail Lake swamp.  We saw at least a dozen and a half, only occasionally as singles.  We saw a group of six and a group of seven although obviously in a small area some of those birds may have been repeats.  Only one agreed to pose.

Focus is a little iffy but that is my cheap pocket camera on full zoom as compromised by auto focus.  Note that the flowers in the foreground are in fairly good focus.

*sigh*

At least you can get the idea.

Even considering the flat tire we had an extremely nice ride.  A great ride on what was just not another day.