A Second Day of Rest: More Repairs, and More Tools!

Content Advisory: This blog post is written and designed with children ten years old and younger in mind. Kids, you can go ahead and skip this paragraph and start reading. Adults, make sure you get permission from your child before reading. If you don't have a child, it's okay to get permission from your niece, nephew, 2nd cousin once removed, or that little girl who lives next doors who's always leaving her toys in your driveway (In all seriousness, I encourage all of you to share these blog posts with your children, maybe even read them to your children who are not yet able to read).

(Click here to find out what this ride is all about. I encourage all who are able to support the children of Ryves Youth Center with a donation. Click here to make a donation.)

**If your children have any questions or comments for me about my ride or about anything I've written, feel free to comment on my blog, and I will do my best to respond within 24 hours.

Today's blog will be short, as I still have some getting ready to do for tomorrow. Today is the ninth day since I left my hometown of Clinton, Indiana. I have completed 7 days of riding, and I have 3 more days of riding until I am done. It is good to be headed home.

Today I went to church in the morning, and for the remainder of the day I rested, ate a lot of good food, and got my bicycle ready for tomorrow. I put some new brake pads on the back of my bike. Brake pads are just rubber pads that rub against the rim of the wheel to make sure that you can stop the bicycle. Here are two views of one of the new brake pads; the first view is a close-up (the brake pad is on the left, and the rim is on the right), and the second view was taken farther out:

The new brake pads really work well, and help me to stop very quickly if I need to. My friend Tim also helped me adjust my front brakes so that they would work a little better--(it's always more rewarding to do that kind of work when you have somebody helping you--thanks, Tim!) Being able to stop quickly is important, because you never know when you might need to be able to stop very quickly to avoid running into something in front of you.

I also wanted to show you some more of my tools. This is my air pump that I use to put more air in my tire tubes. The first picture is what it looks like when I am not using it and it is attached to the top tube of my bike. The second picture shows what it looks like when I am actually using it to air up a tire:

I have to carry spare tubes with me, in case I get a flat tire during the trip. The tube is actually inside of the tire, so when I say "flat tire," it actually means the tube is flat; when a tube is flat, I keep the same tire on the bike and just take the old (flat) tube out, and put in a new tube and air it up. Here is a picture of one of my spare tubes, and my tire pressure gauge:

 (I brought six extra tubes with me on this trip, and so far I haven't had to use any of them, because I haven't gotten any flats yet)

Finally, I wanted to show you a close-up view of my tire pressure gauge. This is a special gauge that I use for the tubes I have on my bicycle, because they have a valve that is different from the valves used on car tires, so I have to use a gauge that will fit the tires. This gauge is important because it helps me to know how much air is in the tube. If I have too much air in the tube, I can get flats from things poking through the tire. If I don't have enough air in the tube, then I can get flats when I hit a stone or something in the road and the tire "pinches" the tube. 

Note: Tire pressure will vary depending on the type of bike. Tire pressure is measured in units called "psi", which stands for "pounds per square inch." During this trip, I have kept my front tire at 70 psi and my rear tire at 90 psi, and that has seemed to work for me. However, that kind of pressure would be too high for a children's bicycle, and might even blow the tire off of the rim. Children's bicycles are usually set to handle between 35 and 40 psi.

This is what my tire pressure gauge looks like. Can you tell me what pressure it is showing here? (see bottom of page for answer):

These are some more of the tools I have to carry with me everywhere I go, because I never know when I will get a flat tire or have other problems. I might be 10 or 20 miles from a store or gas station when I get a flat tire, and that's just too far to try to walk with my bike to get help! Thankfully, I have all of these tools and know how to use them, so it's very easy to change a flat tube if I need to (I also have special tire levers that I use to take the tire off the rim and to put it back on when I am changing a tube; those are the two pink tools that you can see in my tool inventory picture that I posted on day 5). It's good to learn how to fix a bicycle, and most of the basic repairs are pretty easy. I'm not a person who is good at fixing a lot of different things; for example, I really don't know how to work on cars very well. But I learned how to work on bicycles and you can learn how to work on them, too; you just need to have someone show you and teach you to do the basic repairs. It's a good feeling to know that you can fix something like a flat tube on your own.

***Scroll down for answer to the gauge question above***
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Answer: The gauge above reads 82 psi.