I swapped the front and rear tire, so that most of the weight would be on my good tire. I also made a boot out of a plastic drink container to line the inside of the bad spot on the tire.
i actually did this in the morning, so got a late start out of eads.
Five miles out of Tribune, Kansas, I got a flat. A small tornado was brewing about 2 miles away. The winds were fierce! I had a hard time supporting the bike to change the tire. The tornado sounded like nothing so much as a giant, low pitched carpet cleaner. I kept hoping that it wouldn’t come my way. It didn’t.
no pictures. and i commend my younger self today. if there is danger, stay focused on safety.
The boot that I had made from a polyethylene bottle broke in half. I desperately needed to find a real tire to make a sturdy boot, or even better, find a 700-mm tire in a rural town. I knew which was more likely.
At a hardware store in Tribune, I was able to purchase a junky 27 X 1 ΒΌ tire, and was thankful for it. Even the worst bike tire would wear better than a cutout from a bottle. That night, I cut several boots from the tire, and discarded the rest. I knew that the specter of that bad tire would still be looking over my shoulder every mile, though, until I could find a true replacement.
