Tuesday July 7th – New Albany, MS to Batesville, MS

OK, so today was all about tires.

First thing this morning, when were were loading up the bikes, Dan noticed that his front tire was worn – quite worn. Prematurely worn, based on our expectations:

Rob & Ryan’s were not far behind, leaving us scrambling to make arrangements for replacement tires, ahead of schedule. OK, we can deal with this – it’s part of the game.

We were heading back into “civilization”, with hopes of finding a local shop that could help us out, when Dan mentioned that something didn’t feel right with his rear tire. Immediately we realized: FLAT!

Oh no…

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Our Guardian Angel was looking out for us, though, as the flat occurred within a hundred yards of a truck stop, with covered parking, and other amenities; this, after having ridden untold miles through remote areas, with nothing in sight.

The practice afforded by multiple tire changes prior to our trip, along with having brought all the necessary tools and materials along with us, made for a relatively quick change of the tire tube. Within little more than an hour, we were back on the road. Success!

One nice thing that happened today was that we met up with a couple of fellows we had run into several days back, Adrian from Connecticut and Colin from Indiana, who were also doing the TAT, except in their Jeeps.

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So far, they’re the only other individuals we’ve encountered who are doing the Trans America Trail besides us. We’ve had most of the roads entirely to ourselves, which has been quite the treat – we’ll see how long that lasts.