The ride started out flat and we expected to stop in Salome for breakfast, but we never found Salome. It just didn’t exist. We did find Wenden but all it had was a small convenience store. At least it had a one gallon water jug to fill our water bottles. We normally fill our water bottles from the soft drink dispensers whenever we eat breakfast. But in this case it was the water jug. Breakfast was just snack items, but it worked.

After Wenden, we started our first climb which was very gradual. Our first rest stop was just a wide spot on the road, no services at all. Here we refilled our water bottles and ate food we had stored in our rest stop cubby boxes.

We continued our gradual climbing to rest stop #2. at Aguila.  It had a gas station and convenience store combined. I picked up a large bottle of Gatorade, sp other small items and ice cream. It was being to get hot so the cold ice-cream was a welcome relief. Little did I know I would need all the energy I had before the next rest stop, which was again a wide spot in the road. The climbing grade increased a little bit, but along this stretch I had my first flat (low tire) on any Biketheusforms ride. My front tire was going flat. It was a slow leak so I took my bike pump off and pumped the tire back up to 80 pounds. Then I took off as fast as I could go because I didn’t want change the tube in the hot sun along the road. I had gone about 3 miles and I came along another rider that was fixing her flat along side the road. While we were talking, our rest stop van came along and I was able to pump up my tube to 90 lbs. The rest stop was about 4 miles further along the road so once again I took off riding as hard as I could.

I made it to the rest stop, and there in some shade was a chair, a perfect spot for me to change my tube. I found a very small leak created by a small thorn in the tire. I removed the thorn and I was on my way.

I didn’t have any more trouble until we got to Wickenburg. We went out to eat and when I returned I found I had 2 flat tires. When I checked my tires I found more thorns. One tire had 3 thorns so I pulled out the extra tire I had bought along and threw the old tire in the trash.

It turned out we had 5 people with flats today because of the thorns, but that is just what happens. Last year I didn’t have any flats so Ed calculated that I had ridden over 4000 miles without a flat and now I had 3 within a hour.

Tomorrow is another day.