And Then the Breakdowns

Today's Urban Desert Tracking

Jacque and I have been riding the trikes on and off, but I have been very lax in making blog entries about it.
We met a nice couple in Church last Monday at a music & dance affair who generously invited us to move out of the desert at Senators Wash near Imperial Dam and into their yard next to their home in Yuma, where we would have free electric, sewer,  and water hookups.
We actually enjoy dry camping and relying on solar power, batteries, and spotty generator use on the BLM campsites, but this offer was too good to refuse.
Yesterday I needed a  haircut, badly, and Jacque had been encouraging me to get a store-bought version instead of waiting for her to do it.  Our lovely camp host is only 4 or so miles away from a local barbershop, so I decided to ride over on my trike instead of driving.  The streets here are mostly wide and allow lots of room for cyclists on the side and cars and trucks to coexist.  AND the traffic here is quite used to bikes and pedestrians - and what traffic there is is fairly slow and well behaved.
Jacque wanted to ride her Catrike too, and left shortly after I did to ride to the same shopping center where my barber awaited.
The weather here has been in the upper 80's during the day and upper 50's and lower 60's overnight.
This ride was after the day was well warmed up but I didn't get close to overheated.   I was able to ride side streets until about the last half mile, when I had to approach Foothills Drive.  Since it is a very heavy traffic street, I violated bike policy and rode on the concrete sidewalk the rest of the way.  Crossing 4 lanes of heavy traffic to get across the street when I found the barber necessitated several minutes of waiting for a sufficient opening but it was not that problematical.
The shop had a line inside and I had been sitting and waiting for my turn under the scissors when I heard a very familiar sound of small dogs barking and carrying on, which turned out to be Jacque and our two marvelous mutts just arriving.
I got my haircut, done just right, ate a small lunch at a small cafe next door in the shopping strip, and started back to our temporary home.
I poked along with Jacque for a mile or two.  She encouraged me to go on ahead since I ride faster, so I took off.  Rather than just leave her so far behind, I turned a corner and rode around a several-block loop, coming out again on the same street as Jacque and behind her.  As I almost caught up with her, she took off from a stop sign.  As I stopped to take my turn at the stop, I noticed my right front tire was extremely low.  As I rolled forward a few more feet, hoping I could make it home without having to pump it up, it went totally flat.  Frustrated and hot, I pulled over and brought out my tool-bag containing my CO2 tire inflator.  The tire inflated almost immediately but as  tried to get started again one bead of the tire popped off the rim. After several attempts to get the tire to seat properly on the rim, I noticed a steel wire poking out of the tube and tire works and realized:  The tire was ruined.  I had ridden it too long too low in pressure, and the tire beads were popped out of the rubber, meaning there was no way for the tire to stay on the rim when inflated with any pressure at all.
Digging through my pannier full of tools and parts, I found the new 20" tube I have been carrying around for several years was NOT the correct tube.  It was a 20 X 1.95 tube, which will fit Jacque's fat tires but no way would it fit my narrow 1" tires.
So, I had to give it up and call for help.  Jacque answered her cell phone.  She was not home yet, and had a bit of a ride left to get there and drive the Ford Exploder back to rescue me.
Back at the RV, I had a spare tire AND a spare tube of the correct size, so I was back in business in about half an hour.
Tonight I took it for a 3-mile ride around the neighborhood to make sure it indeed is back in working order and it did fine.  Now to just find another spare tire and tube for future disasters....

Ride Started: 11:59 AM    Ride Ended:  2:53 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   13.3   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest:  12.2
Beginning Blood Glucose:  157      Ending BG: 70 
Lowest Temp  67F      Highest Temp:  84F   
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  7.7 
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed  
4.0 MPH                                 5.9 MPH                     16.7 MPH 
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time 
2 hours 51 mins                      1 hour 45 mins          1 hour 6 minutes