As we were packing up this morning to hit the road Tina reminded me we needed to check the air in our tires since we did not do that yesterday. As I was doing it we noticed a good size sidewall bulge in her rear tire. It did not look good and we were afraid it would blow when we were in the middle of nowhere and we did not have another tire with us. You can tell Tina and I do not think alike as she started googling rental car agencies and I started googling bike shops. What I found was most bike shops in the area did not open until 10 or 11 and that was not going to work as we felt this could be a long day since we had a lot of climbing for the day and we would be going through parts of New York City. Our decision was to move forward and she would take it slow on the downhills to be safe in case it blew while travelling fast. We had a list of bike shops in each town we passed so we would keep going until one was open as we passed through. All the time we had our fingers crossed. We stopped at a deli in Byram, Ct and had a great breakfast and met the owner Tony and his son Anthony. Tony told us his grandson also worked there and his name was Anthony and his grandson’s son is named Anthony (we must be getting close to New York!) They were very gracious and made us feel like we have known them for years. Before we left I googled the next towns bike shop and it showed they opened at 9 AM so by the time we got there they would be open. I knew we were going to make it on the bum tire and was thankful we have been having good luck. We only had about another 3 miles to go when Tina said “It just blew!”. I looked over and her rear tire was completely flat, Damn!. Me being the optimistic person I am told her “maybe you just have a flat and the tire is still holding up”, yeah, fat chance. I dismounted my bike and took a look and lo and behold the tire was still intact. I changed the tube and we were back on the road again in short order. Now if only the bike shop will have a tire in stock. We made it to 10538 Bicycles in Larchmont, NY. I entered, asked if they had a tire and who I believed to be the owner (later found out his name was Andrew) said he thought he did. He went in the backroom and came out with 3 to choose from. We got our tire and he replaced it for us. He also noticed Tina’s headset was a bit loose so repaired that as well. Ben, his assistant made us popcorn and they gave us water. These guys also made us feel right at home and were super friendly. The people we are meeting and their kindness is just overwhelming. Speaking of kindness we made a wrong turn as I was looking at my map a guy stopped on his bike and asked where we were headed. I told him and he pointed us in the right direction. Miles later as we were looking at our maps again to try and figure out the way to get on the George Washington Bridge this guy appeared again (where did he come from because when we met the 1st time it appeared he was heading in the opposite direction!) I asked him jokingly, “what have you been doing, following us?” He replied yes, I have been circling you all day to make sure you made it through the city OK. He then escorted us through the busy streets to the entrance of the bridge. That is where he left us and wished us safe travels. His name was Jack, we have named him New York Jack and if he is reading this we want to say “Thanks”.  Entering Jersey City after crossing the George Washington Bridge (that was cool) the traffic was really bad and there were areas with no bike lanes. You just rode as fast as possible and hoped you made it out the other side. Arrived at our hotel around 6 PM. It was another long day (about 12 hours). Tomorrow we are off to somewhere……..