106th ride of 2020 - Friday, 8/28/2020

2020 mileage: 2978.3

This morning's ride had its challenge, but all ended OK. When I went out to the garage about quarter to 7, I wanted to hire up my tires before beginning the ride, but I was unable to get the valve on the right now to close fully afterwards. After spending quite a while on it, I finally figured I'd have to simply do the best I could with it, and hope that was sufficient to get me through the ride,

It wasn't. About three miles into it, that right tire was severely down (nearly flat), and I stopped to get my mini pump out of my gear back on the back of the trike and see what I could do. I had never yet had the pump out of the packaging, but I managed to get it out and figure out how it worked. However, I could not get it attached to the valve. 

I had just texted my friend Dan Cogan to see if he might be able to assist me, and was sitting on the ground, still struggling to see if I could figure it out, when a young woman stopped and called out, "Do you need help?" When she came over, I showed her my explanatory card, and then gestured to the pump and the tire, and said, "I can't get it." She said, "Let's see," and in minutes she had it hooiked up an pumped up. I thanked her, and was soon on my way again. but just as I began riding, rain began to fall.

Before I left home, I was dubious, because the forecast mentioned possible scattered thundershowers, but the same thing occurred on Wednesday, and we ended up having no rain at  all. I checked the radar image, and it showed nothing anywhere near us, so I decided to ride. After my tire issue, when the rain began, it was steady, but never an intense downpour. However, by the time I got home, I was quite thoroughly soaked, and ready to dry off, after riding the Packard/Platt Square (13.7 miles in 1:40).

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