The whole time that I was living in Spain I got one flat tire. ONE! In 2 rides over three days I have gotten TWO flat tires. And seeing how this is me that we're talking about, both were (of course) spectacularly complicated and astounding feats in stupidity.
Flat #1
On Thursday morning after scoping out rides on mapmyride.com, I figured that there was no way that I could memorize all those turns and decided to go for a simpler plan. I would climb the nearest hill, then when I was done, I would take rout 3 (which crosses right at the bottom of the hill) and see where it went. I rode through commercial and residential areas for about 20 miles and found out that Route 3 isn't very pretty, and that it goes through Lowell. Lowell isn't the nicest place in Massachusetts or the world, it used to be the home of dozens of sweat shops for young women in the 19th century, and hasn't really gotten much better since then. I knew better than to ride my bike through Lowell, so I decided to stop at the first bench that I saw, have a snack, and hightail it out of there. I rode along a cemetery that seemed to go on forever, and finally found an elementary school with a bench out front where I could wolf down my Clif shot blocks, then I turned around. Somewhere about half way home they were doing some road work, and I felt the tell-tale rumbling in my seat that means that there is no longer a cushion of air between my bike and the ground.
Not particularly worried I pulled over and took a look. Yep, flat alright. I didn't have a pump,
but I figured that pretty much any gas station or auto shop would have air, and there were dozens along this rout. I walked about a block down to where there was a car detail shop. "Hey, do you guys have a pump?" I asked. Of course they did.
The guy watched me as I pulled off the back wheel. "Wow! That's it? I used to build the kids' bikes and that back wheel was impossible to get off."
"Yeah, well look at these tires!" I said. "These things flat all the time, they need to be able to be changed quickly." Then I continued about my work, pulling out the inner tube.
"Wow, that's a funny little valve stem, do they all look like that?" asked my audience. OH CRAP! I'd forgotten about that! You need an adapter for these kinds of tubes! I'd totally forgotten! Me and my helper greasemonkey decided that we would do the best we could. I switched out the tire and he came out with his hose. He started man-handling the stem, jamming the hose down on it and letting all the air out after he'd pumped it in.
"You have to stop touching it real quick after you pull the hose off," I tried to say.
"But then how do you fill it up?" he said. He wasn't handing over the hose. Never mind, I thought.
Finally we got SOME air in the tire and I said, "Thanks, I think that's enough to get me to a bike shop," and rode away on my flat tire. When I was out of sight of my helper greasemonkey I got off and started walking. I stopped in at 2 more shops where they didn't have the adapter. One mechanic was a biker too and said that I was pretty much screwed. I called my dad, who was in a lunch meeting and asked him to give me a call when he was done. I knew he wouldn't be done for another 2 hours and that I was about 5 miles from the nearest bike shop. I walked about a mile in my clipity-clopity shoes before finding a gas station. As I walked in I heard a man saying, "I was thinking I'd take the brat out for some ice cream..." The attendant and his buddy shut up when I walked in.
"Hi, do you have the adapter for the air pump so that bikes can use it?" I asked.
"No, sorry."
"Alright, well then I'm going to be here for awhile then," I said, setting my sights on the food.
"Wheyah you goin'?" asked The Brat's grandfather.
I told him I was trying to get down to the bike shop and where it was.
"A'ight, I'll take you. Just load your bike in the back of the truck, and if it gets wrecked, it's not my fault." I wavered for a second, but decided that I was too smelly to be in any kind of danger so I accepted his offer. Driving back down the road he told me a story, "Yeah, I'uz drivin' down
Route 3A theyuh, y'know wheah it goes through Low-well, wheah the cemetery is'n and theyuh's an elementary school across the street. Well dis kid comes out, like fowahth oah fifth grade oah sumpin and he stands theyuh in da middle of da street and he points dis gun at me and he shoots right through da windshield of da truck! Then he just runs back inta da school. I goes and I finds a cop and I says, 'You ain't gonna believe dis...' Da cop asked if I could recognize da kid and I says, 'hell no I can't' and he says it was probably some gang initiation thing, dat I should just say dat a rock hit my winshield oah else I'd nevah get nothin' from insurance." That was the same school I'd stopped at to eat my snack.
When I got to the bike shop it turned out that the new tire had a puncture anyway. Whether it was from my helper greasemonkey jabbing away at my valve stem, or from the few minutes that I rode away from him wasn't clear, but he changed my tire and sold me an adapter and I rode home sure that something like this would never have to happen again.
Not particularly worried I pulled over and took a look. Yep, flat alright. I didn't have a pump,
but I figured that pretty much any gas station or auto shop would have air, and there were dozens along this rout. I walked about a block down to where there was a car detail shop. "Hey, do you guys have a pump?" I asked. Of course they did.The guy watched me as I pulled off the back wheel. "Wow! That's it? I used to build the kids' bikes and that back wheel was impossible to get off."
"Yeah, well look at these tires!" I said. "These things flat all the time, they need to be able to be changed quickly." Then I continued about my work, pulling out the inner tube.
"Wow, that's a funny little valve stem, do they all look like that?" asked my audience. OH CRAP! I'd forgotten about that! You need an adapter for these kinds of tubes! I'd totally forgotten! Me and my helper greasemonkey decided that we would do the best we could. I switched out the tire and he came out with his hose. He started man-handling the stem, jamming the hose down on it and letting all the air out after he'd pumped it in.
"You have to stop touching it real quick after you pull the hose off," I tried to say.
"But then how do you fill it up?" he said. He wasn't handing over the hose. Never mind, I thought.
Finally we got SOME air in the tire and I said, "Thanks, I think that's enough to get me to a bike shop," and rode away on my flat tire. When I was out of sight of my helper greasemonkey I got off and started walking. I stopped in at 2 more shops where they didn't have the adapter. One mechanic was a biker too and said that I was pretty much screwed. I called my dad, who was in a lunch meeting and asked him to give me a call when he was done. I knew he wouldn't be done for another 2 hours and that I was about 5 miles from the nearest bike shop. I walked about a mile in my clipity-clopity shoes before finding a gas station. As I walked in I heard a man saying, "I was thinking I'd take the brat out for some ice cream..." The attendant and his buddy shut up when I walked in.
"Hi, do you have the adapter for the air pump so that bikes can use it?" I asked.
"No, sorry."
"Alright, well then I'm going to be here for awhile then," I said, setting my sights on the food.
"Wheyah you goin'?" asked The Brat's grandfather.
I told him I was trying to get down to the bike shop and where it was.
"A'ight, I'll take you. Just load your bike in the back of the truck, and if it gets wrecked, it's not my fault." I wavered for a second, but decided that I was too smelly to be in any kind of danger so I accepted his offer. Driving back down the road he told me a story, "Yeah, I'uz drivin' down
Route 3A theyuh, y'know wheah it goes through Low-well, wheah the cemetery is'n and theyuh's an elementary school across the street. Well dis kid comes out, like fowahth oah fifth grade oah sumpin and he stands theyuh in da middle of da street and he points dis gun at me and he shoots right through da windshield of da truck! Then he just runs back inta da school. I goes and I finds a cop and I says, 'You ain't gonna believe dis...' Da cop asked if I could recognize da kid and I says, 'hell no I can't' and he says it was probably some gang initiation thing, dat I should just say dat a rock hit my winshield oah else I'd nevah get nothin' from insurance." That was the same school I'd stopped at to eat my snack.When I got to the bike shop it turned out that the new tire had a puncture anyway. Whether it was from my helper greasemonkey jabbing away at my valve stem, or from the few minutes that I rode away from him wasn't clear, but he changed my tire and sold me an adapter and I rode home sure that something like this would never have to happen again.
Flat #2
Based on Nitsirk's fantastic tip I found a 60-mile group ride on Cape Cod on Saturday morning. Our Indian summer is still in full force (I love global warming!), and it was supposed to be between 75 and 85 degrees all day. Before leaving at 8 am I opened the box to one of my spare tires that I'd brought back from Spain to replace the one I'd punctured Thursday and found that they'd sold me A MOUNTAIN BIKE TUBE! Not to be discouraged I thought, Oh well, if I have a problem, maybe it'll work; and if not someone's bound to have a spare. I donned my summer threads and drove the hour and a half down to the meeting point (get ready, because this is the coolest town name in the world) at the
Mashpee high school. Mashpee, Mashpee, Mashpee, I could say it all day long! Anyway, the rout was set to start on the ocean side of the cape, pass along the canal, and come back on the bay side. If Cape Cod is an arm making a muscle, we did a loop around the underarm wattle. For a land mass that isn't much more than a giant sand bar, I couldn't believe how many hills it had! Nearly the whole rout was rolling, although the hills probably never got over 100 feet high. We stopped for food where I had a bag of gumdrops for lunch.
After the gumdrops I had the strength of ten men, and in the last 15
miles while some of the other guys were flagging, I was going strong. I was flying downhill on this well-paved back road through the woods when, too late to avoid it, I saw a pebble in front of me. I knew this pebble was bad news. I hit it, and heard tshhhht, tshhhht, tshhhht as my back tire deflated bit by bit. "SHOOT!" I yelled, or maybe it was "FUDGE", or maybe it was something a little more attention-getting because 2 guys passed me and stopped.
"Are you okay?" they asked.
"Yeah, it's just... um... I don't have a pump and I opened a new spare this morning only to find out that it was the wrong kind of tube." I swallowed my pride. "Would someone mind staying with me?" New friend Mike agreed to stay.
I pulled off the tire and took out the tube. Loading in the spare that New Friend Mike gave me we saw that there was something terribly wrong, it was too big. "Yeah, my wheels are smaller than a standard size," I admitted. I kind of knew that this was going to be a problem, but hoped it wouldn't be.
"Well, why don't we try to patch it?" suggested New Friend Mike. "I've got a patch kit."
"I've got a patch kit too, but I've never done it successfully."
"Me neither," said New Friend Mike. With our 2 heads together we thought we could probably figure it out. NFMike found the hole and put great gobs of glue over it, then I took a patch and stuck it on. "Ok, now what do we do?" said NFMike looking at the instructions for the first time. "'Wait until glue dries fully before applying patch' what kind of sense does that make?!" We solved this problem by putting the instructions away and putting more gobs of glue under the corners of the patch that needed it. After a few minutes we pumped it up again. Tssssssssssssssss. Even I could hear it and NFMike was the one who had the patch up to his ear. "Well, we could put a patch over the patch..." suggested NFMike.
"Okay, while you do that I'll try the mountain bike tube and see if I can make it fit." I was losing faith in NFMike's patching skills. I started stuffing the tube into the rim. "It's really wide, I don't know how I'm going to make it not pinch," I mused. When I had it inside I started peeking around the tire to see if there was any rubber trapped between the tire and the rim. There was, but I couldn't make it go away.
"Maybe it'll pull out when we inflate it a bit," NFMike said hopefully. He started inflating it with his CO2 pump and all was going well until BAM! the tube popped and we could see a 2-inch gash in a clump of rubber that was sticking out from under the tire. Damn.
NFMike's patch wasn't hissing nearly as badly as before, but it didn't look promising. "Well, if worse comes to worse, you can go on ahead and maybe come back and pick me up," I said hopefully, trying not to think about what happens to young women who are left alone on back country roads.
"Maybe once we get it in the tire, the pressure will keep it from leaking," said NFMike, not sounding very convinced. "If worse comes to worse, at least maybe you'll be able to get part way." We loaded it up and... IT WORKED! Just as we were packing up to go, Fixed Gear Guy, who'd flatted and been left for dead came rolling up and the flat brigade took off together.
And wouldn't you know it, the patch held! I made it the 10 miles back to Mashpee high school, apprehensively and slowly, but safely. I loaded everything back in the car, changed my clothes, said goodbye to NFMike and Fixed Gear Guy, and just as I turned on the ignition I heard tssssssssssssssssssssss and the patch gave out in my back seat. I could live with that.
Mashpee high school. Mashpee, Mashpee, Mashpee, I could say it all day long! Anyway, the rout was set to start on the ocean side of the cape, pass along the canal, and come back on the bay side. If Cape Cod is an arm making a muscle, we did a loop around the underarm wattle. For a land mass that isn't much more than a giant sand bar, I couldn't believe how many hills it had! Nearly the whole rout was rolling, although the hills probably never got over 100 feet high. We stopped for food where I had a bag of gumdrops for lunch.After the gumdrops I had the strength of ten men, and in the last 15
miles while some of the other guys were flagging, I was going strong. I was flying downhill on this well-paved back road through the woods when, too late to avoid it, I saw a pebble in front of me. I knew this pebble was bad news. I hit it, and heard tshhhht, tshhhht, tshhhht as my back tire deflated bit by bit. "SHOOT!" I yelled, or maybe it was "FUDGE", or maybe it was something a little more attention-getting because 2 guys passed me and stopped."Are you okay?" they asked.
"Yeah, it's just... um... I don't have a pump and I opened a new spare this morning only to find out that it was the wrong kind of tube." I swallowed my pride. "Would someone mind staying with me?" New friend Mike agreed to stay.
I pulled off the tire and took out the tube. Loading in the spare that New Friend Mike gave me we saw that there was something terribly wrong, it was too big. "Yeah, my wheels are smaller than a standard size," I admitted. I kind of knew that this was going to be a problem, but hoped it wouldn't be.
"Well, why don't we try to patch it?" suggested New Friend Mike. "I've got a patch kit."
"I've got a patch kit too, but I've never done it successfully."
"Me neither," said New Friend Mike. With our 2 heads together we thought we could probably figure it out. NFMike found the hole and put great gobs of glue over it, then I took a patch and stuck it on. "Ok, now what do we do?" said NFMike looking at the instructions for the first time. "'Wait until glue dries fully before applying patch' what kind of sense does that make?!" We solved this problem by putting the instructions away and putting more gobs of glue under the corners of the patch that needed it. After a few minutes we pumped it up again. Tssssssssssssssss. Even I could hear it and NFMike was the one who had the patch up to his ear. "Well, we could put a patch over the patch..." suggested NFMike.
"Okay, while you do that I'll try the mountain bike tube and see if I can make it fit." I was losing faith in NFMike's patching skills. I started stuffing the tube into the rim. "It's really wide, I don't know how I'm going to make it not pinch," I mused. When I had it inside I started peeking around the tire to see if there was any rubber trapped between the tire and the rim. There was, but I couldn't make it go away.
"Maybe it'll pull out when we inflate it a bit," NFMike said hopefully. He started inflating it with his CO2 pump and all was going well until BAM! the tube popped and we could see a 2-inch gash in a clump of rubber that was sticking out from under the tire. Damn.
NFMike's patch wasn't hissing nearly as badly as before, but it didn't look promising. "Well, if worse comes to worse, you can go on ahead and maybe come back and pick me up," I said hopefully, trying not to think about what happens to young women who are left alone on back country roads.
"Maybe once we get it in the tire, the pressure will keep it from leaking," said NFMike, not sounding very convinced. "If worse comes to worse, at least maybe you'll be able to get part way." We loaded it up and... IT WORKED! Just as we were packing up to go, Fixed Gear Guy, who'd flatted and been left for dead came rolling up and the flat brigade took off together.
And wouldn't you know it, the patch held! I made it the 10 miles back to Mashpee high school, apprehensively and slowly, but safely. I loaded everything back in the car, changed my clothes, said goodbye to NFMike and Fixed Gear Guy, and just as I turned on the ignition I heard tssssssssssssssssssssss and the patch gave out in my back seat. I could live with that.
8 comments:
This post outlines nicely why I run more than bike. I constantly get flats. Always. I have Gatorskins on my ride, but the tubes constantly get messed up. I don't get it. Imagine if cars got this many flats...seriously.
The only time I had to change my car tire was when there was a 3 inch nail sticking into my tire. I've had to change at least 6 bike tubes this year alone. Wtf.
Rant over. Hysterical post, though.
Claire, you tell the best stories ever. I'm serous. I wish Massachusetts was closer to Missouri so we could go have a beer. Or, at least now, you could have a beer and I could have a ginger ale. Cuz I'm cool like that.
Wow, crazy stories there Claire! At least you were able to have some help along the way, and congrats on finding a great group to go riding with. BTW - that whole FitTV thing really cracks me up. You're right - there is no way I would be out on the beach in a leotard with my stepper. But then again I don't own any leotards and I don't live near a beach so there goes that idea out the window.
How you can make two flat tires that funny, I don't know...but you did.
Good luck with the job hunting, and i'm sure there may be a bit of reverse culture shock going on too. Hang in there.
The job hunt! Good times! Fun!
Perhaps you can be a roaming flat tire changer?
Glad the site was helpful. I have yet to go on a group ride because I am a chicken. I admire your guts to show up with a group of strangers and ride. Oddly, I have done this with swims. I guess it's all about where you are most comfortable.
Performance bike often has sales on boxes of tubes. Sounds like that might be a good investment :)
You go out on a 60 mile ride - without a pump? Are you nuts?
Having read your next post already, I suppose I already know the answer to that question.
My family's from Lowell ( which explains why I'm black sheep Yankee fan)...which probably explains a lot...anyhow umm at least you you didn't have to use the kevlar bead in the tire as body armor.
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