Natalie and I stayed in Garden City on Sunday night and left early Monday morning with the intent to ride 100 miles – up to Bern Idaho, over to Montpelier Idaho, over to Liberty, and then around bear lake. At about the 15 mile mark we both had to swerve to miss broken glass. Luckily we both missed it. About a mile later Natalie lost all of the air in her front tire (right when she had her hand off her handlebars drinking from her water bottle.) She almost wrecked, dropped the bottle, and came to a stop. We are running tubeless and I could see a little bit of sealant coming out of the hole. I could tell the hole was pretty big but it looked like the sealant had barely been able to plug it after the air blew out. I didn’t want to waste time with a tube, so I used a CO2 and inflated her tire and we were off. It lasted about 10 seconds. Too much pressure blew the same hole. So I took the tire off, put a patch on the inside of the tire (I had some that were made for tubeless setups) and then tried to inflate the tire. Unfortunately, the inflator was clogged with sealant, so it didn’t pressurize the tire fast enough to seat the bead, so I wasted the C02 cartridge. I had two left, so instead of risking another I put a tube on and used the third C02 to get us on the road. We only had one cartridge left and one tube, and still wanted to ride 85 miles. I thought maybe I could buy something in Montpelier. Spoiler alert – the answer is no.
As we took off riding I thought to myself “Natalie should have been more alert and swerved better to miss the glass.” I also thought about how I shouldn’t have wasted the first C02 – next time I will patch the tire first.
As we approached Paris Natalie said “Pete, your rear tire looks funny.” Shortly thereafter “it is spurting orange stuff every once in a while.” Apparently I too need to improve my swerving skills. The hole in my tire was different – a 1 cm slit that didn’t go all the way through the tire but a small hole nearby – so sealant leaking out the small hole but it was also moving horizontally under the tread toward the other slit. It was like my tire was running a re-tread which has started to separate. Having learned my lesson and being close to Paris we rode into Paris, stopped at the first gas station, deflated my tire, patched the inside, and then went to re-inflate using the gas station’s air hose and an adaptor on my valve. Unfortunately, the gas station’s air setup was from the early 1960s and wouldn’t work with my valve+adapter. It wasn’t made to seat over the valve stem, so I couldn’t get it to hit the presta core to release air. I used my last C02 cartridge and Natalie’s non-clogged inflator. Unfortunately Natalie’s non-clogged inflator wasn’t non-clogged (double negative!) and once again I didn’t seat the bead. I’ve used these inflators for 2 year with tubeless and never had this happen. I put in a tube, hoping that the mechanics of the valve would be slightly different (in particular, I was hoping the threading would allow the adaptor to screw further into the presta valve, allowing the core to extend into the adaptor further.) This worked and I was able to get about 50 pounds into my back tire.
We called all the sporting goods stores in Montpelier (there were two, plus a taxidermy place) but nobody would pick up. It seemed like too big of a risk to ride the 10 miles to Montpelier because our next flat meant someone was riding back to Garden City alone to get the truck (and heaven forbid they get a flat.) So we abandoned our 100-mile plan and turned around and headed back to Garden City. We had seen an ad for a bike shop in St. Charles and assumed it was one for all the rentals that ride around the lake. It wasn’t likely to have 622×23 presta tubes, but we still had hope. On the south side of St. Charles, just out of town, we saw the sign, but there wasn’t a bike shop near it. There was a tractor being washed in a driveway, but I couldn’t see the farmer. I rode down the dirt lane thinking there was still a chance there was a bike shop somewhere, but it looked more and more like simple farm homes with lots of space between them.
At the end of the lane there was another sign for the bike shop, but nothing that looked like a bike shop – just a home with a detached garage. I rode up and a young mother walked out with her daughter. The bike shop was in the garage, it was her dad’s, he was at a family reunion that day, and she was just leaving for work. However, being rural Idaho, she let me look around the garage to see what he had. He had the tubes we needed and a frame pump. Unfortunately nothing had prices marked and she couldn’t reach her dad to find out how much they were. After a little work her sister was able to track down the prices ($7 for the tubes, $25 for the pump) – not bad. We had one check each in our saddle packs, so we wrote a check and left with three tubes and a pump. I borrowed his floor pump to put 100 pounds of pressure in both Natalie’s front and my rear tire. We were so grateful that this random farm/bike shop in rural Idaho carried exactly what we needed.
We rode about 1 minute when the 100 pounds of pressure in my rear tube caused my rear tire to completely fail. That larger slit I had mentioned earlier – with a little pressure the tube was able to blow through it. I had tubes, I had a pump, but I didn’t have an extra rear tire. Natalie took my rear tire around her neck, like a high-fashion biker necklace and hurried back hoping to catch the woman before she drove away and hoping they had a 622×23 tire. I started carrying my bike back toward the shop. Natalie was able to catch the woman as she was driving away, she called her brother-in-law who was the farmer who had been washing his tractor, and the two of them had found a tire that would fit. We used our second check to pay for the tire and one more tube and I started to mount it.
In the process of mounting the rear tire I pinched the tube, so when I aired it up there was a quick pop and another flat. This just seemed appropriate for the way things were going, so we laughed, used my next tube, tried to be super careful, and aired this one up fine. Everything held. We were ready to roll. The nice farmer gave us his number and offered to come rescue us later, as he had to drive to Montpelier anyway. Luckily he wasn’t needed. The remaining 100 miles were uneventful, other than we got tired. The last 10 miles from Laketown to Garden City were the least pleasant – head wind, fatigue, narrow shoulder, and lots of traffic. We had stopped in Laketown at the gas station and I had thought apple juice sounded good to me. I drank too much and finished the ride ready to throw up. But we finished. We drove to Logan and jumped off the bridge near first dam. It felt so good to cool off. We had dinner with Sam, Peitra, and Orion and then headed home.
I remember Vance was rightfully skeptical of my logic for using tubeless tires. While they have been great for avoiding flats – in this case it didn’t work out so well for us.
