Bicycling

Congratulations to Lance Armstrong for a feat never accomplished at the Tour De France.

I worked on my bicycle this weekend to install two new Continental (http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/de/en/continental/bicycle/general/home/index_en.html) tires from Germany. The bike shop told me that these were less prone to flats. I decided to install them myself to get practice changing the intertube on the bicycle. It was a small disaster. I changed the flat on the rear tire but I must have punctured the tire because it went flat after 4 rides. So that is when I decided to get new tires. I also got more intertubes. The front tube stem was not fully extended from the rim. I tried to pull it more and broke off part of the stem (that tube is history). After I installed a new tube and put the tire back on, it would not inflate. I removed the tube and found two small holes. So I installed another tube and it seemed to lose air as well. AHHH! I removed that and could not find a hole just pumping up the tube. So I reinstalled it and found that not putting the pump head on correctly caused the problem. I then replaced the back tire with not too much of a problem (or I thought). I took the bicycle out for a ride and I found that I had the magnet on the wrong side for the bike computer to work. Later on in the ride was I was turning on a street my gears locked up right in front of a car. I pushed the bike into the grass and found that the back wheel was becoming detached from the frame. The quick connect was not properly locked down. Fixed that and the ride seemed to go okay.

Visited the watermelons today and they are coming along. The moon & stars melon has developed some yellow spots. My father found 3 more moon & stars melons hiding in the leaves on the plants in the back field. It looks like the plants will be producing late so it will be good if I can get a staggered harvest.