Exploding Tires And Strange Birds

Today we went for a ride on the carriage roads. Since we're leaving Maine on Tuesday today's ride was going to be our last. We had gone about 5 miles when we heard a loud "pooft" sound. A quick check showed that Ross's rear bike tube had blown. Luckily we carry a spare tube and tools for just such an emergency. While working on the tire a fairly large bird came out of the woods and walked right up to us! It showed no fear at all. Karen even fed it a blueberry. It tried to sit on one of our bike helmets but fell off. Then it hopped up on the front tire of Ross's bike and just sat there for while. It was obviously used to humans. After changing the tube and pumping it up we started putting away the tools. Then we heard a very loud "BANG" that had us thinking that maybe someone was bird hunting for our friend. But it was that darn rear tire again. This time both the tube and the tire had blown! Fortunately we were near the Duck Brook bridge so we walked there and Ross rode Karen's bike the 1 1/2 miles or so back to the Xterra. In Bar Harbor we had a new tire and tube put on the wheel. The bike shop guy guessed that the tube had been pinched while being installed and blew out under the air pressure taking the tire with it.

Bird on the front tire of Ross's bike.