[I should have made it clear that these are really back-logged, as the date below shows, these events happened almost two weeks ago. In real time we're in Maquoketa, IA. We'll be in Illinois tomorrow morning on our race to Chicago so Brad can see his girlfriend Erin.
We'll be at Heather, our friend from Reno,'s relatives house from some time in the next two days until the 1st of August:
c/o Heather Larican
16W651 Therese Ct.
Hinsdale, IL 60521 ]
As we were packing up to leave Brad noticed his tire had gone flat during the night. As you'll recall we had no more tubes of the correct size and no more patches. After standing around for a while we decided that for lack of any better ideas, a piece from the tire with the sidewall blown out might work as a patch. We covered it with the glue left over from the old patch kits, let it dry and prayed. It looked too stupid to work but, amazingly, it held.
Giving the tire no time to start leaking, we lept on the bikes and began pedaling furiously. On the bike it made for a funny ride; the tire bulged out on top of the patch so Brad bounced up a bit every time it'd touch the ground.
The miles wore on and without the constant wump wump wump I forgot all about the "patch". I sped up so I could get my camera out and take a picture of Brad as he rode by. The picture didn't take right so I started riding to pass him and try again. UHMP! It felt like I went over a speed bump, the back end of my bike starts fish tailing all around. I was not stoaked to have a flat, I flagged down a car and asked them to tell Brad to turn around so he can help me boot the tube with duct tape.
I sat there for quite a while waitinq for him. I had time to pull off the wheel, remove the two inch cotter pin from tire and clean the dirt off most of my drive train before I saw his head appear over the rise ahead. He didn't seem to be moving very fast so I got up and started walking toward him. 50 ft later I realized he was pushing his bike, "You aren't pushing that out of sympathy are you?" I asked him. He had been half way up the next hill before that truck caught him. After he turned around and started coming back up the hill the patch finally went out and he had to push the bike back.
Brad and I were so sick of it all we just moved our gear down from the highway, over the barbwire fence and into the sagebrush. We pitched tent, sat through that evening's rain and tried to figure out what to do tomorrow.
andrew
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