30 mile loop or 50k loop? It doesn’t really matter because today it wasn’t a loop unless I can count my wife picking me and my bike up at Cornwall Park and driving us back to Haggen in Ferndale.
The ride did hold, and really still does hold, much promise to be a great Ferndale/Bellingham loop. Heck, I even had fun today for the first 20 miles which included a flat tire. It was even fun for the next, maybe 1/4-mile, that included two more flats. It was a great day to ride through Cornwall Park, it was a great day to walk through Cornwall Park, and it was even a great day to sit under a tree in Cornwall Park while waiting for my ride.
It went down like this. I left from Ferndale Haggen early as usual and headed east on Smith with plans to turn south on Noon Rd. and make my way to Whatcom Falls Park. Apparently, in the recent past, a car’s headlight became a long mess of broken glass along the shoulder and I had the misfortune to come upon it. I immediately checked for glass and it seemed okay, but the funky handling a few minutes later told me otherwise and as I slowed to turn on Noon Rd my front became completely flat. I carry a spare tube, so after rechecking for glass inside and out, I loaded up the new tube and off I went.
Riding was great over Britton Rd, even along the short stretch of Baker Hwy was good. Beautiful ride through Whatcom Falls, along the Railroad Trail and across I-5 to Memorial park. I jogged north a block or two and took E. Illinois St, which is mostly devoted to bike travel, down towards the Rose Garden at Cornwall Park. As I pulled into Cornwall Park itself my rear tire let loose and I was pulling over to fix flat #2. I still couldn’t find any glass, so I was thinking maybe the headlight glass had half popped the tube. Now I was left with a patch job to do….and my glue was pretty chunky and the patch job was funky, but it held….for about a 1/4 mile.
So then after 20 miles I texted my wife for a pickup and sat under a tree ordering a couple of new tubes and a couple of new patch kits.
So will I do the loop again? Yup I will, all 30 miles of it. Maybe next weekend, ya know with Amazon Prime I’ll be already to make another go of it in a matter of days. As I said I think this could be a great Ferndale Bellingham Loop because it has some road distance with hills along Smith, Noon and Britton roads for workouts. It also has nice gravel path through several Bellingham parks, then a bit of trail along the Nooksack River, and gravel paths again in Hovander Homestead Parks.
** Update** – Several days later, after the new tubes & patch kit arrived I did more thorough forensics on the tires. I did indeed find several super cuts through the tire with no embedded stuff like glass, nails, thorns, etc. I decided to use the patch kits on the holes and put the new tubes into my pack. The tires held air overnight so I rode the bike into work today and we arrived without issues.
