![\"The](\"https:\/\/liveforthepath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/p1000227-1600.jpg\" "\\"p1000227-1600\\"")
<\/a>The bike fully loaded<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Another view<\/p><\/div>\n
Anyway, I walked to McDonalds for breakfast, said goodbye to the roommate (he left before me) and did the final packing of the bike. I set out at around 8am.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Bye bye business school<\/p><\/div>\n
I am rolling along, not far away from roads I have ridden 1000 times, when I look back and I see that my tie down on the back rack is suddenly very loose. Not only that, but when I stop I hear a loud hiss coming from my front tire. Upon further inspection, my tie down has become loose because my sleeping bag is gone. Just gone.<\/p>\n
I sigh, since I cannot ride my bike backwards because of the flat tire, and not wanting to fix the flat because I want to snag my sleeping bag before someone else does if it is on the side of the road. I walk my bike back probably about a mile before giving up on the sleeping bag, when I proceed to unload my bike, turn it over, and look at my tire. I take off the tire and look at the tube, and there is a giant gash across the tube, which I suspect was put there by the tire liner. I had gotten a similar one a few days earlier on the back tire (which I miraculously patched), so I just took out the tire liner and set about trying to patch this, though I was not optimistic. While I am patching this I leave the pump attached to the valve like a dumbass, and when I am done I try to take the pump off the valve, and the whole thing breaks off. So much for my patch job. One tube totally ruined.<\/p>\n
Down to no tubes in reserve, and without a sleeping bag, I return to Tempe to go to the REI. I wait outside for it to open for around half an hour, and then buy a sleeping bag, two tubes, and a U-Lock. Finally I head back out to restart my trip. Suffice it to say that my back tube quickly blows out, with a second gash (remember I patched one several days before). In goes one of my new tubes.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Tempe<\/p><\/div>\n
After all of that, I finally have a fairly quiet ride through Phoenix on the bike paths and side streets.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Hah<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Bike path in Phoenix<\/p><\/div>\n
I stop at a McDonald’s at around 2 and have a lunch before beginning the climb from Phoenix to Wickenburg. The climb is pretty uneventful, with the exception of a hole in the front tire, which I just replace with the other new tube that I got, since I did not want to sit on the side of the hot hot road and fiddle with patches.<\/p>\n