We had been riding mostly our "other" tandem, so I thought we should take a short shake-down ride before leaving. A good idea, in retrospect.

We took off on one of our local routes as usual. When we got to our first water break, I noticed that the back wheel was rubbing the brakes. On closer inspection, the wheel was wildly out of true! I wasn't sure what the problem was, so we decided to turn around rather than continue.

Another good idea. We were about 5k from home when the rear tire blew out. We coasted to a stop and I realised that the rear rim had split in two!

Heart

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Steve Miller/GrampiesBad luck, but all in all better have this happen pretour rather than midtour, while going down a steep hill, at speed, in the rain, in the middle of nowhere.
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11 months ago

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We had a long walk home, which was actually good since it gave me time to stop pouting and develop a plan for saving the tour.

By the time we got home, our "other" tandem had been promoted to tour duty. The Two'sday would stay home, and I would swap the touring tires onto our Bike Friday Traveler XL. The Traveler XL is normally our "sporty" tandem, but I figured that with the tire swap, we'd be OK.

I was right.