We got out of the room late due to the late arrival in the previous night. From the room we went straight to the downtown section of Oklahoma City. On the way we passed by bridges and a district that had an industrial feeling to it. Once we arrived in downtown though we saw the tall buildings. We also saw the entrance of Bricktown, a famous neighborhood of Oklahoma City and a popular destination amongst tourists.
There we looked for a bicycle shop to buy spare tires: ours were not too reliable and we knew in the next days we would enter a less populated area. We decided to buy a pair of Continental Gatorskin tires each. Since our tires were still good to ride we just attached the new ones to the back of our bicycles.
Next we went looking for a place to eat. We settled for a Pizza Hut, about 3 miles from the place we were, but on the way we saw a Mexican restaurant called Big Truck Taco and decided to give it a try. The food was good and we had a good time before moving on.
We then rode to Bricktown. As you probably guessed, there all constructions are made of bricks and bricks only. The historic constructions and the pretty streets made for a nice place to visit. We discovered a Starbucks nearby and set down to drink coffee and research where we would go that day. We also called Brazil and talked to our family.
Once we left the coffee house and headed to a hotel on a nearby city called Yukon. On our way we rode in very different settings, including the 39th street, which was very busy, and also a nice trail around a big lake within the city. We decided to go get food on a Walmart, and checked in the hotel.
That day we rode about 30 miles in total, but 10 miles were within the city itself exploring and visiting places. We were tired from having slept just five hours in the previous night, but still that was a great day and Oklahoma City left a very good impression on both of us.
Day 33 – 05/05/2012 – Hinton, OK
This day as later known as the Flat Tire Drama, part 2.
We had planned to ride a long course of 74 miles this day, and for that to happen we slept early and had a quick breakfast. We also decided to time our stops in order to save time and get there early enough not to catch night on the road.
The first 12 miles were fine: we progressed well despite of the hot temperatures. Our coffee stop was of 15 minutes as planned and then we moved to make another 16 miles before our next stop. We then crossed Elk City, but decided not to stop. The road was straight with no trees and no population, just plantations on both sides. The winds were not too strong so we could move quickly. However, at miles 25 we discovered my front tire was flat.
We were close to an intersection and down that road we saw some trees. We walked the bikes up to that shade in order to fix it quickly and move on. We had used all our spare tubes in the previous days, so we fixed the tube with a patch, put it back on the tire and assembled the bike. We were ready to go when we saw the tire was flat again.
We tried another spare tube we had fixed in the previous day, but no luck… even with several patches it was not holding on. We fixed, assembled and inflated the tire five times with different patches but nothing worked. By this time we have been trying to fix it for more than an hour and it became clear that this would not work.
The problem is that we were 14 miles from the closest Walmart, back in Elk City. That was only place where we could find tubes for tires of size 700x32mm. With no other option, I grabbed my uncle’s bicycle and rode back to Elk City to get tubes. Riding fourteen miles to go, buying the things we needed and riding fourteen miles back took almost three hours. I also brought sandwiches and things to drink, so we had lunch there in the shade. Then we fixed the tire for the last time that day and finally moved on back to the road.
An hour later it was almost twilight. We decided to stop at a nice gas station, the first one we had seen in hours. My uncle was concerned about riding at night, so we searched for a nearby hotel. We found one eight miles from there already towards West. Then we got things to eat, packed in our bags and rode towards that hotel.
On the way we passed through a forest that was inside an Indian Jurisdiction. There we crossed a very long metal bridge. There was a full moon on the sky and the ride on that bridge was very pleasant.
