35 miles today.

I haven't been riding much this year, only once or twice a week. Laziness mostly.

Today the weather was perfect, in the 80s, no wind, partly cloudy. The local Tour of the Valley organized ride is going on today, but I didn't participate this year.

So I went on my own ride. I sawe many ToV riders going the other direction. I was going to ride to Fruita and back, about a 30 mile round trip. When I got to Fruita I felt pretty good so I decided to take the longer way home through the Redlands. It was simply gorgeous! The temp was perfect and I was feeling good. The bike felt great!

About 10 miles from home, I'm climbing up this grade and I hear hissssssssss! Uh oh! A Flat! I don't get many flats fortunately. OK, I can take care of it. My font tire has a boot in it. The tire has a cut on the sidewall and I had double booted it and kept using it. The air was coming out of the cut where the boot is. So I pull over and break out the spare tube and the CO2. The boot in the tire was all dried out and cracked with sharp edges so I figured it put a hole in the tube. I had to improvise with another boot. A dollar bill folded twice usually works well, but I was fresh out of cash. I did have a little paper packet with 2 aspirin pills in it. So I took the pills out and put the paper in the tire as a boot and put a new tube in and went on my way.

Less than 1/4 mile down the road I ran into goatheads. ARGH! Hissssssss!!!! Not again! I was out of spare tubes! I stopped at the side of the road to decide how to handle this. Right then, anther rider comes along and stops. I aksed if he had a spare tube he could give me. He did. Answer to my prayers. I fixed the tire again and got home just fine.