I waved him on. “Totally fine. I’ll be riding again in a minute.”

“There’s my mom,” Ivy said. She waved both her arms over her head.

“Ivy Grace.” The woman pulled up to a stop in front of us. “If you ever ride off like that again, I swear . . .”

“She took a little bit of a tumble,” I said. “Her chain came off, but we’ve got it fixed now. I don’t think she was hurt.”

“Lane wouldn’t let me ride until you caught up,” Ivy said.

Her mom looked at me, eyes wide, and mouthed a silent “thank you,” then turned her attention back to Ivy. “I think Lane must be really smart. I know you want to ride fast, Ivy, but you have to stay with me and your dad, kid. It’s either that, or we stop right now and walk the rest of the way.”

“According to my map,” I said, “that’s about twelve more miles.”

“That’s a long way to walk,” Ivy’s mom said.

Ivy huffed, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “Fine. I won’t ride ahead. But can we please try and ride a little faster?”

A man pulled up beside us. Ivy’s dad, I presumed, based on the baby seat attached to his bike. “You found her.”

“Our friend Lane here helped her after a fall and wouldn’t let her leave till we showed up.”

“The hero of the day, then,” the dad said.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I just didn’t want her to be alone.”

“Thanks again,” the mom said. “Ivy, ready to go? If you promise not to speed off, we’ll let you lead the pack.”

She wheeled her bike up to the front. “I promise.” She turned back and waved at me. “Bye, Lane.”

“Bye!” I watched them ride off, giving them a little bit of space before I started back up myself. Not that it mattered. Not ten feet after I started pedaling, my back tire started shaking so badly I had to stop riding again. I pulled over to the side of the trail and bent down to look at the tire to see if I could tell what was wrong.

“You okay?”

I turned and saw Simon approaching.

“The tire’s shaking. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Seconds later, a loud bang sounded close to my head. I jumped back and fell into the dirt. “What was that?”

Simon climbed off his bike. “That was your tire.”

“Are you serious? What on earth happened?”

He leaned down and looked at the back wheel. “Hard to say. Sometimes they just blow.”

“Can you fix it?”

He nodded, then retrieved the repair kit off the back of his bike. “I’ve got a spare tube.” He stood my bike up. “Here. Can you hold this up?”