Tuesday, May 13, 2025

2025 Trip To The Spring Fling, Day 1

Tuesday, May 13, Broken Wheel Campground, Petersburg, NY, 222 Miles, 222 Miles For The Trip

Well, it started out well but went downhill quickly. First, a tire failure on I87. I managed to pull into a mall since there wasn't any space on the sides of the road. Called Good Sam & they gave me an estimate of 2-3 hours. I asked it they could find someone a little faster & they did. It still took 2 hours before the spare was on the trailer. While the tire was shredded to the point where it was in 2 pieces, it didn't damage the wheel well. 

The Blowout

Fifty miles further down the road my Tire Minder sounded an alert. A different tire had a valve stem failure. Goodyear put hybrid stems when I asked for metal stems. The standard rubber valve stems flex enough so that the Tire Minder valve caps hit the tire wheels. Hard to believe, but you can see the marks left behind. When I got a new set of Goodyear Endurance tires they used the hybrids rather than full metal stems. Of course I didn't have a spare anymore so another call to Good Sam and placed an order for a tire, stems, and tire mounting. 

Putting on the spare is covered by Good Sam; the purchase of a tire and mounting the new one on your own rim is not. Much faster service this time by a pro who knew his stuff. He put the new tire on the rim from the blown tire & mounted it on the trailer, and replaced the valve stem on the second tire and mounted it as the spare since I wasn't sure that I didn't do any damage to it while getting off the road.

 No photo of the second flat. I didn't destroy the tire since I had an early enough warning to slow down until I could pull over. I do need to get a Tire Minder that has a louder warning and is brighter - I never heard or saw the warning with the first failure. It may have started as a failed valve stem as well. I also plan to replace the three remaining hybrid stems with full metal ones.

So, I pulled into the Broken Wheel Campground a little before 8:00. I didn't do a lot of setting up since it was late & we are only stayine one night. I didn't even take a site photo - maybe in the morning. I did get dinner - Anne made a spinach/pasta/chicken meal that was great.

Until Next Tim

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