I had planned to do a 35-40 mile ride today. That was the plan. So I got up this morning and ate a light breakfast, then I went outside. Damn. Windy. Well, I'll put my shallow front wheel on instead. I normally run 80/80 on my Shiv but I do have a 35mm front just for windy days. The 80 up front can really push the bike around in significant crosswinds.

Grabbed the 35 but it was flat. Crap. I'm running tubeless on the Shiv and the 35 is tubeless "capable" but not necessarily tubeless ready. I've noticed that it seems to only hold air for 2-3 days before it gets noticeably soft. I haven't run the wheel in probably 3 weeks so it was pretty well flat. OK, so I top it off with 95psi and pop it on the front of the Shiv. Off I go.

About 5 miles into the ride I notice the front feels soft. I stop and check and sure enough, it's almost flat. My guess is that it sat long enough with no air that the sealant dried out. Since I wasn't that far, I limp it back home and swap the 80 back up front. I'll get pushed around in the crosswind, but I'll just deal with it. I also make sure that's topped off to 95psi just in case, and once again, off I go.

I get about 5 or 6 miles into the ride and between fighting the headwind/crosswind and just feeling blah I start to wonder if the cycling gods are trying to tell me something. I have no idea why but I just felt flat myself. No energy, no motivation. Then it seemed like all of a sudden, I started hitting every golf ball size rock on the road. Where I live, a lot of people ride ATVs or dirt bikes on the shoulder. Invariably, they kick up rocks from the dirt onto the shoulder. And it felt like I was a magnet for them today. I hit one hard enough I stopped to check and make sure I didn't damage the rim. At that point, I felt discretion was the better part of valor and called it. I made the shortest loop of my known riding routes and headed home. Ended up totaling just 25 miles, including the first stretch of the soft tire.

I feel like I'm coming up short on my goals, but it was just one of those days when it felt like someone or something was telling me not to push my luck.

You need to switch to a sport that doesn't involve wheels and tires.

I had a similar experience. I set out for my 35-mile route, to test out the new 11-34 cassette and see how I would do on a climb near the state park. It was after 22 miles or so, almost didn't make it up the hill, totally out of gas and HR into Z5. Thought I would have had more, just one of those days. I pretty much took it easy after that, my right calf twinged a little, didn't want a cramp. I got up early to watch the Tour, maybe a lack of decent sleep?

Go with the flow, there are good days and bad days.

And with it getting hot everywhere, be super careful about heat stroke/exhaustion

hydrate a lot

in the heat I find that my HR goes up a lot higher for similar effort than at lower temps. so I keep the HR on the low end of my range and go slower.... YMMV

Heat is definitely a factor, but I've lived in southern Nevada now for more than 25 years. I know and respect the heat. The scary thing here is just how quickly you can get into trouble. Thanks to evaporative cooling, you don't feel that hot so long as you can still sweat. But you can get into trouble really fast once you pass a point.

But that's one reason why I try to get out and be on the road no later than 9am, and earlier is even better. Like this morning, I was on the bike just after 8am. Had things gone to plan, I likely would have been back before 10:30, even if I had done the full 40 miles. But even cutting it short, I still finished around 10:30. It's hot by then but a far cry from how hot it's going to get by 4 this afternoon.

I do admit I'm really bad about hydration. It's something I know I need to work on, but particularly when I'm working around the house, or just generally at work, I forget to drink regularly. Before I know it, I've gone 2-3 hours without any water intake at all.

here is a shameless plug for coconut water company that my son does ecommerce for..... I find it does help my hydration (mix it and nunn) https://cocolectro.com/

I think the non denominational cycling deities were telling you that you should have popped the valve cores out, added 2 fluid ounces of your preferred sealant into each tire, reinstalled the cores, pumped the tires up and then gone right back out.

Some days are like that. While I don't think I've had to abort a ride because of compounding issues, a few times I've had to "return to base" to fix something and start over. And plenty of times that I have performed unscheduled maintenance just before a ride.

Although, in the OP's case, I check the weather forecasts the night before a ride and pay close attention to forecast wind. In this case, the 35 mm wheel could have been checked and prepared the night before. But hind-sight is 20/20.

Nevada, starting a ride at 8 am in the summer! Heck, I live in Albuquerque, and I'm trying to finish my rides by 9 am when possible. And on the hottest days, I'll be on the road before sunup.

I an now definitely never going to try tubeless.

When it's summer I try and leave at 7 am at the latest for a longer ride. I don't even ride mtb's right now since going slower is just less fun in this heat.
Chill out, you tried twice to go on a ride and the first time had a mechanical, second time had a bad vibe and were smacking all the debris. Don't push your luck on those days unless you HAVE to train. When I get injured doing something it involves either feeling like **** and doing something hard, or competition/ group activities and I send it too hard. Think about what you can do next time to prepare for your big weekend rides and just do them better. Maybe carry around a waterbottle when you are doing physical work and just have a goal of finishing it every 1-2 hours.
Just ride in the next day or two.
Some days are bad, but that helps you appreciate the good days that much more(hopefully).

You know, I've checked a few of the local TV station forecasts and reasonably accurate wind predictions seem to be about the lowest rung on their priority ladder. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen forecasted winds of 5-10mph only to get out on the road and be hit with 25-30mph gusts. Not only is that irritating, in certain circumstances it can be down right dangerous.

Because someone did not set up and/or maintain her tubeless tires properly and had a bad experience? I agree that you are probably a poor candidate for tubeless.

I'd say you made the right decision.

If I'm not feeling it, I alter the ride to make it easier, or just cut the ride short. There's nothing bad about switching to an easy paced ride.

You can't do too much endurance riding. Sometimes, just taking a coffee stop mid-ride will rejuvenate me enough to let me ride further.

Pickleball!

All what has been said, echoed...
Things to consider...
Running tubeless needs attention... if the tire is only holding air for 2-3 days, then it's not fully sealed. Yeah, you can try to use a regular tire, and it might work, IF you add enough sealant to allow the tire to seal all the porosity in the carcass. You have to add sealant and then patiently rotate the wheel slowly to allow the sealant to get to all inside surfaces... you might actually see some sealant extruding thru pores in the tires.
95 seems a very, very high pressure for running tubeless, and depending on what sealant you use, it may not be able to hold a seal at those pressures.
On my ride today, one rider (very strong rider, bigger guy) found his tire going a bit soft... Tubeless and he normally rides it at 70 psi. Today it would lose air until it hit about 50 psi and then air loss would stop. We all surmised that the sealant couldn't hold the 70 pis, but could at 50 psi. He rode the 80% od the ride still ahead, at 50 psi in his rear tire. He was always at the front, 1st to top summits - wish his tire had softened quite a bit more... LOL!
If you're doing an adequate 'warmup', experience can usually let you know how the rest of the ride might follow... always good to listen to that voice...
Way back when you first started here on BF, you asked for general advise. I suggested getting with a ride group for a few regular rides. Group rides are great because, for roadies, there's always an adequate warm up. You can go 'harder' because you would also do the work only part of the time, the other part is when you get to sit in. And you have the connection with other riders, some which might have more experience, or other ideas on how to progress.
Have you made contact with a group ride? My past experience is that there are groups in LV... I was, for many years, quite often spending time in LV for tradeshows, and always saw multiple groups out, in the mornings, when I would go out for my spin... Riding by yourself, all the time, is very limiting in improving yourself. RIding with other, better riders, is more progressive.
Not every ride should be a hammer session. Be Happy on the bike, make it fun. Doing this won;t slow you down, it will prolly make you faster.
Ride On
Yuri

Sometimes you are the hammer, sometimes you are the nail. You have just been nailed

Koyote: The Velocity Psycho rims on my + 10 year old Co- Motion Pangea Rohloff are not computable with tubeless. I have read up on tubeless and don't have a desire to poor money into it just to change to that system.

That's fine, but your prior post strongly implied that you're not going to try tubeless because of VegasJen's experience.

tomato coupe: VegasJen's post was just another indicator that the tubeless situation is more work than it is worth for my situation. I have very few flats and the most recent ones were about 3 years ago. I tried some TPU tubes and they were not the cheap ones either. I have decided that I will stick with the devil that I know.

I will echo tomato coupe's point -- your reply did make it sound as if you were put off of tubeless by a red herring. But with that established, then yeah, it might not make sense to buy new wheels just to go tubeless, especially on a road bike, and especially if you're not getting many flats.

I lived in Vegas years and left before you arrived. Heck - 25 years, you should know = some days you Crap Out.

The town that was not built on Winners

We talkin’ ‘bout tubeless? Tubeless?

Well if you are going to use VJ’s experience for confirmation bias then you should at least note all her issues running tubed tires, which led her to going tubeless.

Some days I have goals and some days I just ride for the pleasure of the feel of bike & man becoming one. Either is just fine.

​​​​​​https://www.windfinder.com/#3/39.5000/-98.3500/spot