My First Flat

Every biking blog on the planet tells you to get prepared to change a flat on the side of the road, because it WILL happen.

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It isn’t that I didn’t believe them. I bought the tire levers and the patch kit, and I have carried them with me faithfully. But not a pump. I never got a pump.

Because I guess, deep down, I really didn’t believe them. I have never in my life gotten a flat on my bike.

As a kid, I spent every free hour on my bike. Even when the kids I played with were just talking, we’d do it while circling on our bikes. Maybe we wanted to be ready for anything. Maybe we just had unending puppy energy. Regardless, thousands of hours of bike time, not one flat.

And this wasn’t gentle riding either. We hit every pothole we could find in order to pop wheelies. We built ramps from scrap wood with the heads of rusty nails poking out. We rode full speed into the woods and then bailed out. Our bikes hit logs, crashed into trees, wound themselves up in thorn bushes.

Not one flat.

I never even had to pump the tires up, though that might have been a parent stepping in. I remember tires getting low when the bike was neglected, when a new bike would come along, and the old bike would end up in the back of the garage. But no flats.

Nor did I ever get a flat during my magical time riding in Chicago.

But I got a flat yesterday.

I had taken Doodles over to a friend’s house. We like to walk our dogs together and chat. The ride there was uneventful. I locked up under a staircase. We had our walk and a good long talk.

But when I got back to my bike, it had happened.

I realized it when I got the bike unlocked and rolled it out. Not from the feel. From the sound. The rubber flapping sort of noise a completely empty tire makes.

I heard the noise, but didn’t believe. Not until I got on the bike and tried to pedal. Nope.

Back tire. Flat as a pancake.

Now, I bought all the flat fixing tools. And I mostly carried them with me wherever I went. But by a bizarre coincidence, I did not have them with me when I actually needed them. I had decided that one time to lighten my load.

And look what it got me. Funny joke, cosmos!

So there I was, stranded. Fortunately, I wasn’t too far from home. Only about a mile and a half away. Unfortunately, I had Doodles with me, who had just finished a five mile walk and who was tired.

So I put her in the basket, and I turned on my lights, and I pushed that bike all the way home. When we got home, I took the bike inside.

I was beat, but I knew the first thing I’d be doing the next morning.

Yes, one of the problems with using a bike as transportation is that there is no AAA.

So next day, I got out my tire levers and an instructional video, and I tried to fix that tire. And tried and tried. I couldn’t get the tire levers to slide around the rim. I could get them under the edge of the tire; I could force that one small section of tire out. But I could not slide.

Part of the reason I couldn’t do that was that I refused to take the tire off the bike. I know. Dumb.

But in my head, I was struggling. Did I want to patch this tube? On the one hand, that’s why I bought a patch kit. On the other, the next time I rode, I’d be heading to work. I couldn’t deal with a leaky patch.

So finally, I wheeled by battered bike over to my local bike shop, and $15 later, it was good as new.

Next time, though, I’ll take care of it myself. Next time.