Photos for Friday, 8/7

Refugio Beach State park to Oxnard, CA

Friday, 8/7 -  67 miles. Today started out with a front flat tire within the first ten miles. I ran over something (not sure what) which resulted in a one inch cut in the tire sidewall. I patched the inside of the tire with a boot and put a small amount of air in the tube to reduce the pressure on the tire sidewall. After riding to Goleta we ended up on the campus of the University of CA at Santa Barbara. Luckily there were several bike shops near the campus. The 1st shop didn't have a tire that was the right size - my recumbent uses a 20 inch front wheel. The second shop had several 20 inch tires but they were very wide BMX tires. I wasn't sure they would fit my bike without hitting my front fender. Eventually, after some additional looking the shop found a narrower front tire that worked. When I removed the damaged tire I saw the tire patch had cracked so it is likely I would not have gotten much further on the patched tire. This trip has been hard on my equipment. Both my front and rear tires were damaged on this trip and had to be replaced. One of my tent poles has a damaged end. I was able to fix it temporarily and hopefully I can come up with a permanent fix after the trip. Several of the tent floor patches came off. Also, two of the plastic feet on my LuxuryLite cot cracked. For much of today we followed bike paths or a marked bike lane on the road. They were generally well marked although there were a few areas of confusion. In Santa Barbara it was Fiesta Day so we inadvertently ended riding in a parade with lots of horses. We rode at least half the day with Peter who was cycling from Vancouver where he lives to LA. We had met him on the road a few days ago and our paths crossed several times over the past two days. He is a teacher like many of the people we have met riding. We eventually made it to the Davids' beach house in Oxnard where we were treated to a nice dinner.