Flat and Tired

(brice–written last night)
So George Washington worked out pretty well for awhile, but after about 15 miles the dollar rotated around and Susan’s tube blew out again a slightly different place. We repatched the tube and got back on the road fairly quickly… when I got a flat. My rear wheel is getting a bit thin and I don’t think the kevlar has held up too well as a sliver of metal got through… twice as it turned out since while reinflating after the first patch there was still a leak. So another patch later we were back on the road, but pretty far behind our normal schedule, only having about 20 miles covered by 13:30 or so.

We made it all the way into Idaho, just a few miles short of our destination of Clark Fork, when one of the patches in Susan’s tube gave up. I’ve never had a patch leak like that before but probably the extra room in the tire due to the blowout is to blame. We put a new tube in and got George back in place, got back on the bikes, and my wheel was flat. At this point it was about 19:00 but fortunately the sun is up late. Another metal shard had punched through my rear tire.

So the tally for the day was 2 flats for me (but 3 changes due not checking the tube well enough before reinstalling) and 2 for susan. We’re down to about 15 minutes per change, which I think is pretty good considering we’re reinflating with hand pumps.

Despite all that, we actually had a great day. I’ll let pictures at the end speak for the scenery, the weather was nice, and the wind was light. Tomorrow we’ll get to a bike store, get new tires, and see what’s going on with my rear hub, which kind of sounds like a baby dolphin is stuck in it. I think the freehub is wearing out.

Pictures:
Out of Libby, we followed the Kootenai River west and saw the falls and attempted to cross the river on a suspension bridge, which some of us had more success with than others:

Then we turned south through the Cabinet Mountains:

Then we turned west again along the Cabinet Gorge reservoir:

and crossed, finally, out of Montana and into Idaho: