Single Cylinder Psyche

It was raining when I got up at 6:00 this morning.  The weather site I use said things would clear up later in the morning so I stayed in to catch up on the blog posts.  It was a good time.  The motel had a little self-serve breakfast set-up close to my room so I made multiple trips for coffee, glazed donuts and raisin bran, and blogged away.  But the rain didn’t go away, and it was approaching check-out time.

I’ve ridden in the rain before, but only because it started raining during a ride and the choice was to either stop and stand in the rain or keep riding.  I’ve never just started out in the rain.  At this point in the trip I have something of a schedule to keep.  The weather site radar showed me located at the eastern edge of a weather cell, and I thought may-be I could continue my ride east and escape into clear skies.   So I suited up in my best armor and rode off down the wet road.  I was a little apprehensive at first, but gradually realized that I was warm, mostly dry and seemed to have good traction with the pavement.

Life was good…until the flat tire.  There had been a fairly strong northern cross-wind all morning, and the scooter was swaying a little with the gusts.  At some point I suspected the scooter was swaying more and in a different way than would be accounted for by the wind, so I pulled over and sure enough the back tire was almost flat.  I wish I had taken a picture, and normally would, but I didn’t want to take the camera out in the rain.  This was a county road in a seemingly endless expanse of alfalfa fields, with miles between farmhouses, no cell coverage and almost no traffic.  But I remember looking down at that flat tire, feeling the rain, sensing the distance from any possibility of help, and feeling happy and enthused.  This was a challenge, in a Don Quixote kind of way of looking for trouble and being happy when you find it (almost finished with the book).

You may wonder, as I do, what kind of sick twisted mind finds happiness in trouble.  Don Quixote was crazy.  I didn’t think I was.  I got out the miniature compressor purchased a few days earlier in Cody, Wyoming and gave it a test.  The tire pressure went from 10 psi to 35 in just a few minutes.  I couldn’t find a puncture or hissing leak, only a small crack in one of the grooves.  I rode on.  After about 15 miles I arrived in the town of Faulkton, where I found a closed-down machine shop with an overhang where I could set up shop.  A more careful inspection of the tire, without rain hitting the side of my head, didn’t reveal an obvious leak point, and the pressure had held those 15 miles.  I rode on, intending to stop at the next town along my intended route that might have a motel.  It was Webster, South Dakota, 106 miles away.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have or should have turned around and headed back to Forest City.    I thought I was about to ride out of the rain, and if that didn’t happen, at least my rain gear would hold up.  Neither assumption was correct.  By the time I realized my mistake, shelter was as close in the forward direction as it was if I had turned around.  My rainproof pants turned out to be water-resistant, and eventually my jeans were soaked.  I was very cold.  I considered drastic measures, calling 911 but there was no cell coverage, setting up the tent in the grass alongside the road and getting in the sleeping bag, or taking a side road to a farmhouse and trying to explain why they should take me in.

Since you probably read the title of this post you know that I did reach Webster.  I was lucky enough to get a room at the first motel I saw because someone had cancelled two hours earlier.  I turned up the room heat, took a half-hour warm shower to thaw out, then got into bed and took a two-hour nap to recover.  The ride was one of the most dramatic physical experiences I’ve had in my life.

As for pictures, I don’t have many because it wasn’t a picture-taking kind of day.  The featured image above is looking out the front door of my Forest City motel room as I was about to start the day’s ride.

Shelter at Faulkton

 

 

Looking out the front door of my Webster motel room, after my nap and the skies had cleared.