Day 15 held a lot of promise, with a light tail breeze predicted, a day of rest on my butt, and   a flat smooth road ahead I was hoping for another big day.  There was no breeze when I started at 8:30 AM and the heat was sleeping in more than I did.  Then a light breeze started heading me and stayed that way most of the day.  Obviously the breeze failed to listen to the weather report before starting out this morning.

Uni patiently waiting for rider to get his sore butt in gear.

Despite the contrary breeze I was able to keep it in high gear on the KH 36 Schlumpf until I rode about 22 miles,  then I noticed my tire was losing air.  I had pumped it up before I started out, so I figured I must have a small puncture.  Not an easy thing to do the durable Knight rider tire.

I took out my little tire pump to see if I could put some more air in and see how fast the leak was.  That 36 x 2 Knight rider tire took one look at my little pump and just started laughing.  I huffed and puffed as I pumped and pumped, and managed to pump the tire from 14 psi to 2o psi.  I was five miles from the next town so I slogged my way along.  It was a very cushy ride.  I made it to town and called my support crew, sat down and ate lunch and waited.

Joan was shopping about 20 miles away, but took little time to get to me.  I decided to pump up the tire with a real pump and see how long it would hold air.  Joan and I played leap frog for the next 34 miles and the tire never seemed to get soft.

Racing an RV

Today I drank the most fluids for a day, about 6 liters.  I finally had to pee five hours into the ride.  I barley wet the ground.  I think it was evaporating before it hit the ground.  The pee was a little to yellow for my taste, so I continued to drink as much as I could until my water was gone again.  Max temperature recorded today by my gps was 100.4.  The average temp was only 86.

Stats for Day 15:  Longest day yet at 46.2 miles averaging 11.9 mph, max=15 mph, Ave heart rate 121, max heart rate 138.  Ascent= 900, Descent=75. Max elevation= 2660, min elevation=1885.