RAGBRAI 2008 Day 2-And More

Well, I'm back riding again. Got 14 miles in yesterday and 25 miles today but I had a surprise in store for me this morning when I went out to the bike at 8am. I had gotten the tires ready last night, checking them for proper pressure and I do recall that I noticed the valve on one seemed a bit loose (and the clamp down nut was loose). I tightened it back up and didn't give it another thought. Additionally, the pressure on both tires was pretty good, although I pumped it up to 85 psi (ensuring that it would be at least 80 after pulling off the pump nozzle). So as I was rolling the bike out of the garage I noticed that the front tire was flat! Immediately I though how lucky I was that it went flat at home rather than on the road. But further investigation revealed something I've never had happen to me before in 40 years of bicycle riding. As I removed the tire and tube I noticed the valve just flopping around. Soon I saw the reason for the flat ... the valve had simply broken away from the inner tube as you can see in this picture:


Needless to say, I'm glad that it didn't happen on the ride, although the solution was pretty simple, especially because it was on the "easy to remove" front tire. I replaced the tube and all was well for my ride this morning. My theory on the failure is that the tube (size 700x28/38C from Specialized) really doesn't fit snugly down to the hole in the rim that the valve stem goes through. So when I tighten up the stem lock nut and then put pressure in the tire, the tire is probably pulling itself away from the stem. Eventually (in this case over 13 months and nearly 5000 miles), something has to give ... and it did.

My solution is that I will now always put air in the tube before tightening the lock nut and then just snug the lock nut up to the rim, adding a second lock nut (from a spare tube) so that they can "lock" together and give support to the valve but not stress the valve's connection to the inner tube proper. Hope that works.

OK, on to the 2nd day of RAGBRAI 2008. The day is Monday, July 21, 2008 and the ride is from Harlan to Jefferson. There is no doubt that this is the most difficult riding day of the week with over 5000' of altitude change (i.e. hills) and about 85 miles in distance. I had some trepidation starting out as I knew that I had gotten only about 4.5 hours of sleep (what with the tornado warning, etc., in the wee hours of Monday). Since sleeping was not the best anyway I decided to get an early start and was on the road by 6:10 am. That part felt good ... very little else did that day as far as the biking was concerned but the end of the day was one of relief and a feeling of great accomplishment. I captured one of my favorite images on this particular morning ... take a look:


One look as I was riding by and I had to stop and take this one. If you look carefully you can see that another rider had already stopped and was down by the lake near the windmill when I took this picture ... and he appears to be taking a picture of a bicycle that looks like it's magically floating out in the middle of the lake (click the picture for a larger image and you'll see what I mean)! I have no idea how he (or, more likely, the farmer that owns the lake) did that. Another nice picture on this ride features an alfalfa field with the hay nicely baled on rolling hills as the riders continue making their way towards Jefferson:


Here's another great image of the countryside around Monday's RAGBRAI riders:


And what would RAGBRAI be without the cornfields? There was some concern about whether or not they would be "tall enough" for typical RAGBRAI rider use this year but ... not to worry. The corn was fine. And if you've never ridden you may never know what happens in those cornfields because ...


Jefferson arrival was a welcome relief and I stopped at the info center and asked if there were any (indoor) rooms available for a lone rider. The gal there said "sure, why don't you stay at my house". How cool was that! Her name was Beth and she gave me the address and phone number and said her husband, Keith, was at home and would be waiting for me to show up and get settled. I think they had 3 or 4 more riders stay at their house that night and they had two daughters, Emily and Heather. Here's a picture of the five of us on Monday night:


From left to right: Keith, Heather, me, Beth and Emily.

The mileage at the end of the day in Jefferson was 1747 with an average speed of 12.4 mph and 86.84 miles ridden. What an enjoyable afternoon and evening ... and I slept really well! Tomorrow we'll cover the 3rd day's ride from Jefferson to Ames.