When the circumstances all line up correctly, it’s not hard to convince myself to pack up a few things and head up northwest to my hometown for an overnight stay with my relatives. It not only contains the joy of experiencing the beautiful Lake Minnewaska with family and friends, but also provides all of the original roads that initiated my love of cycling.

Of course – I brought my bike with a plan to ride in the calm, morning weather.

I got into town on Saturday afternoon, after both riding and completing a few necessary chores around my house. After a nice meal with my dad and his wife, we all got together at my aunt’s house and took to the pontoon. With the 4th of July weekend going on, the town of Starbuck hosts an evening fireworks show that is best viewed from the lake. Thus, we packed into the pontoon for the three mile trek over the calm, dark conditions of Lake Minnewaska. It was a perfect night for fireworks and we enjoyed it with at least 100 other boats in the same area.

In watching the forecast for the next morning, the weather conditions were perfect for a ride. The temperatures were in the low 70s and there was very little wind to be found. Thus, I hit the road at around 7:30am with some ambitious plans to get a 40+ mile ride in my old neighborhood.

I took the counter-clockwise route around the lake, heading past the Minnewaska House before rolling into the town of Starbuck. It’s fun to observe both the changes and the familiar over the roads that I rode bike hundreds of times in my youth. Many of the houses are the same, but the roads have been modernized and now offer much safer conditions than I experienced when I was younger (they were much more narrow and offered blind-spots over the various peaks/hills along the route).

As I’ve noted before when cycling in the area, it’s such a noticeable difference regarding the lack of traffic on the roads. There are several stretches where I could see miles in either direction and not spot a single car. If you like solitude, its a great place to live. There is clearly a whole different degree of “quiet” that exists in that part of Minnesota – compared to my usual roads around my house in the West Metro.

By the time I worked my way around the lake (around a 21 mile loop), I started to feel the affects of Saturday’s ride in my legs and decided to cut things a little short. The original plan was to head out to Lowry on the newly-paved Highway 55, but I was already slowing down at mile 20 and didn’t feel like putting in an additional 20 miles into my body. Instead, I headed out along County Road 24, with the plans to cut back to the lake before returning to my dad’s place.

That’s when I got the flat.

I had not yet flatted in my new wheels/tires so I wasn’t first aware of the feeling. Fortunately, the flat was uneventful – slowly leaking down affecting my rear tire. I had my headphones on and was listening to some music when I heard a strange rhythmic sound coming from my drivetrain. At first I thought I had something stuck to my tire and I brushed both of them off – thinking a pebble or something was stuck to the surface. I finally realized that that wasn’t the problem and I, in fact, had a flat rear tire.

I’m not exactly sure how long it was flat, because it was actually riding OK. Given that I really slowed down for the previous two miles before I realized the tire was, in fact, flat – I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been flat for some time.

I need to start paying more attention when I ride.

Fortunately, the change was easy and I had all the necessary equipment. The hardest part was using my mini-pump to inflate the replacement tube. It only pushes a very small amount of air with each stroke – so I probably got more exercise pumping away at the damn, little pump than I did during the actual ride.

With about 50psi of air pressure in the tire, I limped my way over the remaining 5 miles of the route and got back to my dad’s place. It wasn’t the welcome I was hoping for in returning to my old cycling routes, but it was still a great morning to be out on a bike. Even if I was sore and grumpy due to mechanical difficulties.