Day 88- Do two pings make a pong?

Day 88 Wednesday, August 4, 2010 Distance 89.37 km. Time 4 hr. 49 min. Total so far 6171.20 km. We left the Knight’s Motel only because it wasn’t raining and the forecast said it would rain all day. By 9 am. nothing had happened so away we went. This time we followed the bicycle paths through Fredericton. The first part was cinder. Then we had a brand new paved portion and going out of town it became narrower and cinder again. It’s so nice not to have to worry about traffic behind you. We worked our way to Hwy. 102 which follows along the St John River. Our first break along a guardrail had a beautiful display of Mother Nature’s wild carrots as I call them. They smelled so nice. Just before the second hour break, ping, and Blackie had broken a spoke in the back again. We were near a campground and it was threatening rain but decided to change it by a picnic table by the road that said “World’s Longest Picnic Table.” We crossed a bridge ( there are a lot of them in this part of NB ). We had to ride on busy Hwy. 2 for a short distance before going back to Hwy. 102. There , walking their bicycles up a long steep hill, we met Clayton, 48, the dad, with daughters Danishae, 13 and Grace, 10 soon to be 11. Hooray for those girls. They have come all the way from Cornwall, ON and are going to PEI. They have been on the road for a month now. They took bicycle paths most of the way from Cornwall to the far side of Quebec. Last night, they stayed at Nackawic ( big axe) which we passed by shortly after. Three cheers for them!!! We had to go back to Hwy. 2 one more time and what a bummer but I shifted my weight way over to one side of my bike to alleviate my sore bottom and I heard a ping. I always listen to my bicycle and sure enough there was a broken spoke on the back. Over she went and off came the wheel and then the tire and tube. We do not have a tool to loosen the back cogs and I also have a plastic ring to keep the chain from falling in the spokes so we had to bend the spoke completely out of shape to get it in. After the wheel was back on the bike , Dave had quite a time, tightening and loosening spokes to stop the rim from rubbing on the brake pads. Now I need a bicycle shop to change that spoke again and true the wheel. All of this was done under a very dark sky. After we started riding we finally got showered on by a sun shower. We could only keep the gear on for 10 min. and it had to come off again for the heat. We turned back on Hwy. 102 and rode to Meductic where we stopped at the store for some goodies and found out there was a town park. It was right down by the river and although it said no camping, we thought they wouldn’t mind our little setup . No one came to chase us away. The park had 3 nice canopies with tables and we set up at the very farthest away from the parking lot. I washed a little from a dock by the river, had supper and slept pretty well as it was quiet and also quite warm.