A Day of Community

Woke up early and got to work on patching the two flat tubes. Also attempted to true the rear tire, and got it pretty true, so that it no longer wobbled. Ate a bagel for breakfast, and a little water, of which I was nearly out, not having planned on guerrilla camping. I also took care of the hole in the rim tape by placing a couple small pieces of duct tape over the hole and a band-aid over that for a little added insurance. I figured that should hold at least till the end of the trip. I walked the bike over to the wooden ranch fence separating my adopted land from the highway right of way, and put the wheel back together and back onto the bike as it leaned against the fence. While working on this, three bike tourers coasted by, who I recognized as the Cox brothers Jaris and Jefferson, and Dave Dominguez. Hey! I yelled, to which they replied, and had to do a double take upon recognizing the face. What are you doing over there? I explained the situation, and and that I thought I was pretty close to being ready to head out, so they said they'd wait for me at Bodega Bay so they didn't get too far ahead if something was still wrong. Dave asked if I needed something to drink, and I hadn't realized how thirsty he was till he asked, so he threw me a bottle of gatoraid and I finished it instantly. Thank you Dave!
One hour later I was back on the road, and the bike felt pretty good. It was around 10:00 am, and I figured if the bike held up, I could ride just over a century and make it to SF by dark, or shortly thereafter. After riding for about an hour, though, I got another flat. I pulled out the tube, and the flat was exactly where it had been before, but I was confused because I could hear it but not see it, and the band-aid and duct tape were still sitting snugly over the rim tape hole. Standing there as I was, confused and frustrated, made for the ideal time for two more tourers to pull up, a guy and girl. They were nice, and offered the idea that perhaps the patch hadn't held, and perhaps they other one would work. They also gave me another, larger patch incase I needed it. We said goodbye and I hoped they were right. As I finished putting in the other patched tube, three more tourers pulled up, these guys from Ohio, and they had a spare tube, which I purchased in case I needed it later.
Heading up a hill after some cars passed me on a dangerous curve and nearly hit on-coming traffic, I felt like the police were looking out for me when a few minutes later I passed one of those cars, parked on the side of the road, with a cop car behind. Hopefully they got a ticket. I biked on, and wondered what the cop was doing when 10 minutes later I got pulled over by the cop. Without going into the details, the cop gave me a warning but no ticket for taking up too much of the lane, in a spot where I absolutely was taking up nearly the full lane but quickly approaching the dangerous corner curve where i could see there was nearly no shoulder. The cop said the car was 70% responsible for the near accident and that I was 30%. I maintain that I bare no responsibility. Want more details so you can agree with me? Post a comment.
So the tire was good again, but something felt off within another half-hour. The tires were fine, but the bike was wobbling again, and it was getting steadily worse, until I didn't feel safe going faster than 20 mph. The wobble was horrendous by the time I reached Bodega Bay, and there was no chance of going any further, so I went into the campground and got to work on truing the tire. I had plenty of emotional support, since there were lots of other bikers there already- Lindsay and Kevin who I'd met earlier, Charles and Ali, two couples from Montreal (on separate tours), Chris, Ethan and a different Chris, and an older tourer who's name I never got, for a total of 13 bike tourers, more than I'd seen at any other hiker biker camp. While this was exciting, no one had much experience with tire truing, and while Charles was able to lend me his truing tool, a little easier to use than mine on Kirk's multitool, he had no experience with truing tires, so I got to work. Within two hours I had it looking pretty good and feeling decently tight, so I adjusted the brakes, took it for a spin, it felt good, and the spokes were much tighter than they'd been after my last truing attempt. I still knew it would be a good idea to bring it in to the bikeshop in town the next day. Chris fed me dinner that night, and cereal in the morning. Thank you Chris! All in all, it was a big learning day and a day for meeting many other tourers and swapping a couple short stories, though I was mostly focused on working on the bike. No photos from this day.