Three years ago, I rode my bike from Tallahassee to Gainesville for my 45-year high school reunion. Since it's 160 miles by bike (145 by car but I added a few miles for interest), I stopped in Mayo overnight. You can look it up ... amazingly, there's a decent motel in Mayo.
But on the first day, going through Perry, I suffered a blowout on my rear tire. Tread separation ... looked like a manufacturing defect.
I have touring experience, so I know to carry a spare tire. But when I went 'bent (some years after my last long tour), "spare tire" became plural, and I convinced myself I didn't really need spare tires.
Well, there's no LBS in Perry. Wal-mart had 26x1-1/4 tires but I needed a 26x1.25. Was glad I knew the difference. I managed to patch up the tire enough to limp the remaining 30 miles to Mayo, but I could only put about 30 psi or less in the tire or it would bulge and threaten to blow again. I pulled into Mayo after 9:00.
Next morning I got started about 10:00, but hadn't gone a couple of miles when I started hearing the chunk-chunk-chunk that meant the tire was bulging again. Spent about an hour by the side of the road stuffing it with pieces of tire, duct tape, twisted underwear, old nylon hose ... I even considered putting a hose clamp around the tire and rim for reinforcement. (Some people say you can fix anything with duct tape. I say man cannot live on duct tape alone; he also needs hose clamps and cable ties.) I limped on, now with less than 20 psi in the tire.
I had mapped out a route using a country road that parallels the highway, which has a good paved shoulder but is hot and boring. Came to a junction for which I had no notes and had not saved a waypoint. (I use my GPSr as a speedometer/odometer.) I took the turn away from the highway because I remembered there were connectors back to the highway (which I didn't want) and did not remember any roads turning away. I trusted my judgement even though I could hear people talking outside a house nearby.
You can probably guess how that turned out.
It was nearly an hour before I admitted that I was going the wrong way. I retraced back to the wrong turn. Now there were only a couple of people outside the house. A boy noticed me and called out that he liked my bike. (I get of a lot of that on a bent.) I asked which way to Branford, and a woman on the porch confirmed that I'd been riding "into the swamp".
This was only late April, but it was hot. (Four days later, on my way home on April 30, Tallahassee had an all time record high for the month of April.) For a short time there was a nice bike trail around the south side of Branford, but going east it turned into an obstacle course and I had to revert to the highway shoulder. That was after fixing another flat, this one unrelated to the blowout. But path and highway had equally full sun. Past Ichetucknee Springs, the path got better. It was dark by the time I got to Alachua -- I'd been averaging 6 mph (stops included) rather than my usual 8 mph, and had added about ten miles by my misadventure. I had good lights and would have ridden the remaining 10-12 miles, but I was worried that if the tire went totally bad, I might not have cell phone reception. I called my sister, who picked me up in Alachua. (She lives in Gainesville, in the house we grew up in.)
The next day, I bought a replacement tire and a spare tire for my rear wheel, and a spare tire for my front.
The return trip was hot but thankfully otherwise uneventful. I had spare tires but was happy not to need them.
So why the long story? To say that next time I'll ask for directions when I have a chance, before I get out into the middle of the swamp.
Edward