The day started badly with a storm headwind confronting us from highway 94. The wind has such a big impact to our daily mileage that it actually sends you into a depressive zombie like state. Coupled with this was a total of 5 punctures in the first 2 hour stint. Each puncture takes about 10 minutes to sort out and change.

You have to take your bottles off, take your saddle pouch off, turn the bike upside down, take the wheel off, get your tools, spare inner and gas out, lever the tyre off, take the inner out, unscrew the cap and adaptor rim ring, check the tyre for any embedded stones etc…..

Put the new inner tube in, thumb the tyre back on (its too risky to use the levers for this part for fear of catching the new inner with the lever or squashing it against the rim) screw tight the rim ring, screw a Co2 canister to the dispenser, inflate the tyre to the desired psi, screw shut the adaptor and cap, put the wheel back on the bike and tighten up the lever, spin the wheel to make sure it runs true, turn the bike back upright, pack away all your tools and old inner, reattach the saddle pouch underneath the saddle, place bottles back into their carriers, check location and time, hop on bike, check nothing has been left behind, THEN recommence pedalling. The mood was sombre to say the least as we realised that the going was going to be slow for the day.

You basically need 4 things to go in your favour to maximise our average speed: wind, flatish roads, smooth roads that have a stone-free soft shoulder, good temperatures and weather…… Not asking for much are we?! So, all-in-all it was a tough day that took us to Hermann which was an initial German settlement formed in the 1840’s by a Herr Hermann. Rhineland was the sister town that evolved out of the German Jew exodus in the 1935 as pressure against the Jews was building up in the Fatherland. The town looked very Germanic, clean, well presented and felt like a real community which is a bit of a first since our trip. Communities so far have been few and far between since we started in California….but that’s another story.

Tomorrow should take us to Illinois, The Mississippi river and green prairies. Night.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Coast to Coast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.