A Cyclist Theory Proven

With 10km remaining in today’s ride, a rule and theory every cyclist knows was proven when I had a flat for the first time on the road in our 15 months of touring. That “theory” is that you’re not supposed to talk about flats, and that’s exactly what I did on our rest day yesterday while we were having lunch. My exact words to Tim were “I haven’t technically had a flat yet on the road, because you can’t count the two I’ve had when the bike was being stored in our friends garage in France, or when it was left at another friends work in Thailand while we took time off the bikes to visit with them”. My theory is that those two sets of friends wanted us to stay longer so those were my other 2 flats on this journey.🤔🤔

Luckily we were at a place we could pull over with some shade at a restaurant on the side of the road after we’d just turned off a busy highway that we’d crossed. It was my back wheel and I found the culprit right away (which doesn’t always happen). It appeared to be the tip of a nail so we knew right away that the tube could be patched or replaced. I voted for replaced without hesitation since it was at the end of our ride and it was nearly 💯 degrees. Tim said, “turn it over and get started”, whereas I said “great, this will take an hour”. So then began Tim taking over with me assisting, because I’m not the most patient or mechanical person when it come to these circumstances. I like to think of Tim as the Doctor of the bike, and me assisting as the Nurse handing him the tools needed when he asks for them. I would like to state that I did flip the bike over, and pump up the new tube 3/4 of the way with 150 pumps of our manual hand pump. So Tim 80%, Steve 20%, right? We were on our way again in half the time I stated it would take if I’d done it all by myself, so I consider that a Win Win and hope Tim feels the Same Same. 😇

It was a easy and flat (no pun intended) ride alongside relatively quiet canal roads and in familiar areas that we’d pedaled back at the beginning of March on our way to Bangkok. Tim found a great homestay for us to stay at that has a small classic Thai kitchen and three rooms. An older couple and we assume their daughter run it, and we think they are just tickeled that we are here. The seafood (squid & shrimp) rice, noodle, and soup we had for lunch and dinner were perfect from the patio overlooking the Bang Tabun River that leads out to the Gulf of Thailand that we will pedal along most of tomorrow on another 100km ride we have planned in the saddle.