Today's weather was warm, but by no means scorching. In the mid to upper 80's, winds from the North West. I wore the standard kit. I felt average going out the door. My right knee has been sore for the past week. I've been icing it. As soon as I got out of the door, I knew that the type of pain I was feeling in my knee was going to persist. It turns out that it did, but never really escalated. Suffice it to say, I made my way out to Route 202. I felt good, despite the knee pain. I think my body is getting acclimated to the heat. I climbed Banducci wall, starting with moderate tempo. Then kicked it to Good, and High over the top. My knee was sore, but I felt ok. Nothing close to unbearable. The false flat was my recovery zone. The remainder of the climb was no less than moderate tempo. Once I made it to the summit, I took a 30 second breather and headed back down (from where I came). I soft pedaled most of the way down. As I was riding the false flat before the descent on the wall, I noticed my tire was making the slightest thumping sensation. I knew what this meant. Either the pavement was uneven, or one of my tires had the casing ready to burst. I ended up descending down the wall and checking out the tire after crossing Route 202, onto OTR. It turns out that I was right. The front tire had a bulge in the casing, indicating that the life of the tire was over. After seeing this, i deflated the tire by about 10 to 15 PSI. I had to make a decision, scratch the ride, or replace the tire. I knew I had a spare at home. I decided to replace the tire. I was then considering, do I go back home and fix it, or have someone come out and give me the tire to fix on the road. I ended up going back home to fix it. It took about 6 or 7 minutes. I took off once I had fixed and inflated the tire. My knee was still sore at this point, but I wanted to see how it was going to feel. So, I headed back out and went to Keene. I did moderate tempo getting to the summit. Giving me time to warm up (again). I soft pedaled the descent. Once at the base, I stopped to swap out my 3rd bottle and commenced the climb. After about 30 seconds I realized the my knee soreness wasn't going to escalate. I was able to climb at the pace I desired. I put most of my cookies on the steeper sections. Doing good tempo for the other regions. Once I made it over the Loop monument, I took a breather on the short descent. Then put it back to Moderate/Good tempo. I made a conscious effort to keep the tempo nice and steady, no sudden accelerations. This was to be the case for the remainder of the climb. Once the climb was finished, I soft pedaled for a few hundred yards, and picked up the pace ever so slightly, making my way home. Concentration was real good. I was in the zone. Constantly making note of my ailments, all the while maintaining my focus. Ailments consisted of mild right knee soreness, some right hand numbness, slight lower back soreness towards the end of the last climb. Some left hip soreness. Balance and form felt good. Gear is working well. For some reason, my GPS went into "pause" mode after noticing when I got back home to fix the tire. Turns out that I probably hit it while in my tuck going down the Banducci wall. Pressing the pause button resumed the timing from where I left off. My guess is that I lost about a 1/2 to one mile in metrics. I wore my walkman, but the battery was depleted. I ended up using my cell phone to listen to music. Other notes, I saw 3 or 4 cyclists today.