Day 45 and 46

Day 45 - Grants to Grants:

Ugh. What started out as a wonderful ride slowly went bad.

I was up early and managed to be the first breakfast customer at Lottaburger before leaving town.  I enjoyed a long, gradual climb on gravel roads through rock canyons for about the first 20 miles. After that I turned onto this road:


I think it didn't like how casually I approached it and decided to show me who was boss. It was not wet thankfully. It was instead covered with goat head stickers.  The first 15 miles were fine but after that the plant was everywhere.  I had a double puncture in my front tire at 18 miles, followed by another two stickers in my front tire at 24 miles, followed by another front puncture at 26 miles. 

After having used up all my spare tubes and realizing that repeatedly patching was going to be slower than walking I decided to try something a bit crazy. Looking back on it I still think it was my only option though. 

The rear tire was set up tubeless and was having no issues dealing with the thorns (how I ended up with a front tire with a tube and a tubeless rear tire is explained in the entry for day 41). Unfortunately I didn't have another bottle of sealant to convert the front to tubeless, so I decided to deflate the rear tire, scoop out half the sealant, and put it if the front.  Unfortunately I also had only one CO2 cartridge and trying to use half of it on the front tire and half of it on the rear tire resulted in two tires with beads that failed to seat.  They initially looked good but after a couple minutes the beads dropped into the center sections of the rims and the tires lost all pressure.

It was looking like a long walk out to the nearest paved highway (14 miles forward) and I started down that route planning to complete 4 miles before camping for the night, then the rest in the first few hours the next morning.

After about 30 minutes of walking I ran into a few guys out exploring the area in a 4-wheel atv. They were headed back to Grants and offered me a ride out. Since I didn't see any options for getting the supplies needed to set up both tires tubeless at any of the towns in the forward direction, I took them up on it. I ended up back in Grants checking into the Quality Inn around 9 P.M..

Day 46 - recovery day in Grants:

Grants is a small town with no bike shops and no car rentals. Although it has a Walmart, it did not have supplies for tubeless tires. What Grants does have is at least three u-haul rentals. I ended up renting a 10 ft long box truck, throwing my bike in the back, and driving 75 miles to a Trek store in Albuquerque. I had them replace the rear tire (which was getting bald) and set both wheels up tubeless. I also picked up 5 CO2 cartridges (all they had) and 6 bottles of sealant.

Tomorrow I head back out of Grants but will be taking the El Malpais Alternate instead of road C-42. Although I am confident my bike could now handle the goat heads, I have seen 80% of C-42 and may as well see something different. That will also allow me to get to Pie Town (yes, that is an actual town name) in one day rather than 1.5, minimizing the time lost.

Below is a shot of all the goat head stickers bits I pulled out of my tires before throwing in some new walmart tubes so that I could ride over to u-haul.




Comments

  1. TanyaSeptember 7, 2022 at 7:04 AM

    I am happy your tire situation has been resolved and you are on your way again. Thanks for the photos. Have fun!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Days 18 to 23

Image
I am spending tonight at a motel in Boulder, Wy. After three days of evening thunderstorms I am taking a break to dry everything out, shower, and take care of some equipment issues. I spent several hours in Pinedale today doing laundry, replacing a failed air mattress and failed hydration pack, and doing some food shopping for the next stretch. Tomorrow I should reach Atlantic City, Wy. After that is probably the most challenging section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from a water management perspective. The route goes from there to Rawlins through the Wyoming Great Basin. It's 130 miles of dirt roads with zero towns or services.  There are two reliable water sources along the way (Diagnus Well and A&M Reservoir). It should be interesting. Pictures and comments for the last few days appear below. Lima to Upper Red Rock Lake, MT: Video leaving Lima (pronounced like the bean): Saddle issues (fixed with some zip ties and tightening some bolts): Although most of the day wa...
Read more

Days 41 to 44

Image
Day 41: Abiquiu to just past top of un-named pass about 30 miles south This day was the hardest of the entire route.  Indiana Pass was a close 2nd.  Because of a flat the day before, and finding out that the glue in both of my patch kits had turned to rubber, I left Abiquiu with pretty minimal options for fixing flats.   Leaving Abiquiu the route has an almost uninterrupted 5,200 ft climb to the top of an un-named pass.  The start is mild but miles 5 to about 10 were very steep and hot.  I rode that section with another rider named Graham, up until the point when I got another flat.  Not sure whether I failed to remove whatever caused the flat the afternoon before or if it was a new issue.  I tried to patch the tube with a generic auto/motorcycle/bike patch kit I had picked up in Abiquiu but it did not work.  The patch clearly was not sticking and just peeled right off.  So I went to a back-up option.  I used the only bottle of seal...
Read more

Days 27 to 30

Image
Rawlins, WY to Slater, CO Before leaving town I picked up a couple of days of food. The first ten miles or so out of Rawlins were paved. After that was a long stretch of dirt/ gravel roads, ending with 15 miles or so of pavement into Slater.  Slater was right on the WY/CO border. The cabin I rented for the night was in CO but the house 50 feet away was in WY. The terrain was insanely hilly all day long. I'd spend 15 minutes crawling up some hill, then spend the next two flying down the other side. The scenery was worth it though. Two days of junk food: Roller coaster: Finally some dirt: Random shots along the way: An area called "Aspen Alley": Descending into Slater: $40 cabin rental: Slater to Steamboat Springs  The scenery and the cool weather this day were wonderful but the day included a nasty little climb called Watershed Divide. Up until the last 2 miles I thought I'd be writing about the easiest almost 10k foot climb I ever did, then out of nowhere popped some ...
Read more