The invisible thread

After setting out from Globe towards Thatcher, 76 miles away, I started getting slower and slower. I began to think I shouldn't have packed that extra 1/2 gallon of water. My knees and lower back started hurting. Then my bike started getting all jelly-like and very unstable, and I wondered if the it was getting fatigued: maybe the bike and I were not up to the task. Then the back end got really wobbly... and I looked down and I had a slow flat.
I pumped a few times to get my rig to the highway rest stop at Bylas, where the group ate lunch in the shade and I pulled the back wheel off, extracted a tiny thread of wire (steel belted radial shrapnel) and replaced the tube. I guess that counts as a working lunch?
The afternoon ride was a glorious cruise up the Gila River valley, cool temperatures and nice tail wind, effortlessly cruising at 15-20 mph. It felt like being pulled along by an invisible thread.
Finished off with a very large chocolate dipped ice cream and into camp shortly after 3pm.
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