Slow Cycling Notes

Walnut season

October 27, 2026

A narrow country road in autumn covered with fallen green and black walnuts, an old steel bicycle leaning against a split-rail fence

Sunday was 52 degrees and still, with that flat gray sky that never quite turns into rain. I took the long way down the creek road, about 23 miles out and back. It's narrow, it's mostly empty, and in late October it's paved with black walnuts.

If you've never ridden over a black walnut, it's like riding over a golf ball wrapped in a wet tennis ball. The green husks are soft at first. The nut inside isn't. My bike has 32 mm tires that I run at about 60 psi, and that's plenty for gravel shoulders and bad patches. It isn't enough to just roll over a walnut and not notice.

For the first few miles I weaved around them. Then I gave up weaving and just tried to hit them square. Neither plan was very good.

The slow one

Around mile nine the rear end started to feel vague in the corners, as if the road had gone soft. It hadn't. I pulled over by a split-rail fence, squeezed the tire, and guessed it was down to maybe 30 psi. It wasn't a pinch flat. When I ran my thumb around the tread I found a sliver of walnut shell, thin as a fingernail and stuck in at an angle.

Fixing it took twenty minutes, which is about twice what it should take, mostly because my fingers were cold and I set the tire lever down in the leaves and had to look for it. I patched the tube instead of swapping it, just to see if I still could. I could. The mini pump got me to something like 55 psi before my arm complained, and I called that good enough.

While I worked, a walnut dropped from the tree above me and landed about a foot from the wheel. It felt pointed.

What I'll do differently

The rest of the ride was fine. The sycamores along the water have gone pale and bare at the top, and the creek was low enough that I could see the stones. I got home at dusk with yellow-brown stains on my fingers that will be there until about Thursday. That's walnut season.