I was remarking (some might call it bragging) to Dgym, as he changed his remaining front tyre this morning, that I'd been about 3000 miles on my Schwalbe Marathons without a puncture. I shouldn't have said that. I really, really shouldn't have said that. About 10km down the road, in Ratzeburg, both of us laden with goodies from Aldi and looking for a park in which to picnic, I started to feel a strange bumping sensation from my rear wheel. Looking down, I saw that the tyre was looking unnaturally squishy. Not quite believing it, I jumped off and gave it a quick squidge just to make sure. Deflated indeed... Examination revealed a sharp stone having penetrated the tyre and pierced the tube - and several more which had pierced the tyre and become embedded, but not made it all the way through. The front had similarly embedded stones - I do pick these out from time to time but had got a bit lax about it. I'm considering getting a new pair, given the amount of damage.
The weather's still pretty unpredictable. The terrain has become gently rolling, it's nice to have some gradient again and my bottom definitely appreciates not being stuck in the same position on the saddle all day (a problem I have found with flatness). The landscape is lush and leafy and green and bright yellow, and I saw a hairy little caterpillar crawling across the path today.
Despite the slow start today, we made it to Schwerin, unfortunately the tourist office had just closed when we arrived at 7pm so we found ourselves a hotel. It's a pretty lakeside town, quite big but unbelievably quiet. Wandering to dinner at about 8-9pm, the streets were practically deserted.
No comments:
Post a Comment