Cross country bicyclist

Wednesday I met a cross country bicyclist outside the county library. He was stopping at the library to check his email. My, how the world has changed since my last long distance bicycle tour. In my day the only communication with home was via postcards and the occasional phone call.

This fellow, Ethan, was riding from Annacordes, Washington to Coney Island, NY. Ethan, originally from North Carolina, has lived in NYC for the past 7 years. He quit his job to go on this ride.

"Why?", I asked.

"Why not?", he replied. Actually he was sick of the concrete jungle he lived in and wanted a change and wanted to see the country before he got too old and no longer wanted to camp out. He looked to be in his 30s.

Even though the Going-to-the-Sun road was still closed I encouraged him to ride each side for as far as he could. He wasn't too keen on taking such a long diversion, even though he didn't have to be back in NYC until the end of July. And he said he was getting tired of the mountains. What?!

After leaving the Rockies he has no more mountains and has a long prairie to cross. He will soon miss the mountains. I encouraged him to take this opportunity to see a few more mountains as this opportunity more than likely will never come his way again. He said, he would think about it.

He asked mileage to West Glacier, MT and was unsure if he felt like riding 40 more miles that day. He asked about places to camp. When I did that on a bicycle tour it was partly to find a place, but also to open up the idea that I was interested in a place to stay in case the person I was speaking to felt inclined to let me camp at their place.

I know, having been on the receiving end of an occasional place to stay, I should have offered him my place, but I didn't. He still seemed to be on "New York time" and not completely living "in the moment". I had gotten the basics of his journey already and wasn't really interested in entertaining him. Also I had other chores at home to do.

Well, karma came back to bite me. That night I got a flat tire on my bicycle. A rim pinch. A "snakebite" we also call it - two holes that look like a snake bit the tube. A bear to fix due to double holes.

I was out of my old trusty tube repair kits. A new - glue less - version is available and I tried that. It surprised me as the patches appear to have good sealing ability. But as this is a snake bite, the patch is still finding a way to leak.

Tommorrow I'll see if I can solve this problem or whether I have to put a new tube in the tire.