Odometer: 632 – 750 (118 miles, 190 kilometers)
I set off to make Lima. The wind and the weather looked favorable. I grabbed what I could from the “complimentary” breakfast room and set off.
Here are a few email accounts to Ann along the way.
1pm: “Am in Dillon now. I arrived before 1 -about on time. I had good winds – northwest.
It is 50 miles from Dillon to Lima. I think it will be a lot tougher. The winds are changing to over 30km/hr from the west. If I manage 10 miles an hour – which is reasonable but not guaranteed I will be there by 6 or 7 depending on how long lunch is.”
7pm “Well I made Lima by about 7pm (mountain time). It was kind of a strange day. When I left Dillon about 1:45 the highway points southwest. It couldn’t have been more directly into the wind. The highway continues along the same direction for about 25 miles until the Clark Canyon Reservoir. Unfortunately I discovered I had a slow flat about 3 miles short of the reservoir. Long story – I put on the inner tube that I thought I fixed at the Lost Llama Lodge and it leaked worse that the one that had gone flat. I decided to nurse the slow flat – filling it about once per hour. The whole thing took about an hour.
The funny thing is that when I got it all back together and on my bike ~ 4:30pm the wind was coming from the North. So I made pretty good time after that all the way into Lima. Yay! 113 miles.”
I had a good supper at a cafe in Lima and rented a cabin behind the cafe for the night. I could have pitched my tent across the road for a whole lot less but I was determined to find all the leaks in my inner tubes with good light and a sink. In retrospect it is a very expensive way to find leaks.
So I set to work. By 11pm I hit the sack satisfied I had done my best to find and fix 5 leaks in two inner tubes. This is not promising! (I only had two flats in my Marathon Mondials when I went across Canada. I’d check the pressure in the morning to see the result.
