We awoke this morning to a steady rain, so we killed time over breakfast waiting for it to blow over, as the radar suggested it might. At 10:30 the rain had stopped, so we hit the road. About 10:31 the rain started again, and continued for the next two hours. One good thing was that the temperature was just about right for riding with our rain jackets. We were soon soaked, but neither hot nor very cold.
Shortly after we passed the federal supermax prison at Florence, where Ted Kuzinski and many other notorious bad guys are held, we had a blowout on the rear tire. Working in the rain, I pulled the tube and located where it had blown out, but couldn't find what had penetrated the tire or allowed the blowout, so I put in a new tube and pumped it up.
A few miles later Sandy remarked that although the road was smooth she felt a wobble in the rear of the bike. I stopped, not really expecting to find anything, but indeed the rear tire was coming apart. The tread was separating from the sidewall. I'm sure that was the cause of the blowout, even though the tube blew at a different place on the tire. So... I pulled off the tire and replaced it with the spare I got free last Friday, through the kindness of the Mountain Wave shop in Breckenridge. The ruined tire was the second of the two new Schwalbe Marathon tires I'd bought for this trip. The first lasted 900 miles. The second, 1800 miles. They both had plenty of tread left; both failed from sidewall delamination. No tire should fail like that, unless it hits something on the road.
The rain finally stopped for us, and we continued toward Pueblo. We had expected an easy downhill day since Pueblo is 1300' lower than Canon City, but with four miles to go we were still at our original elevation: it had been up and down all day, and to go along with the rain, we had a gentle headwind all day, too.
For good measure, the right rear trailer tire flatted as we reached the outskirts of Pueblo. It was a simple puncture, from a piece of wire, but it was a fitting end to a tire-plagued day.
I called Bike Friday to order new tires, and on their advice bought a different brand. Let's hope we have better luck with them. Since Pueblo marks the end of the Rockies, weight is no longer as critical, so I had them send me three tires, and a trailer tire for good measure. If we carry all those tires for the rest of the trip without needing them, good. At least it will take more than one jackass's broken beer bottle to put our whole trip on hold. We just have to get through the next two days until we catch up with the tire shipment.
It was the longest 50-mile ride imaginable. We didn't reach the small city of Pueblo until 6 o'clock, but after showering we found a sports bar close by where we could relax and watch both the Tour de France and the baseball home run derby. They even have a free guest laundry at the motel; the first time we've seen that, and it couldn't have come at a better time.
Goodbye to the western mountains. Hello to the plains.
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