Bad Things Travel In Threes And Why 97% Is Not Enough

Another morning, another flat.

Not how it went down...

As I walked into the garage and performed my routine check on the bike tires, I noticed the rear tire was very deflated. I couldn't find any obvious culprit(s) like a huge nail or a ginormous shard of glass, but didn't want to chance it, so I decided to attempt my very first tire change. I had time to spare and figured it wouldn't take more than 20 minutes.

It took 30.

I didn't remember everything about how to do a tire change so I used my semi good friend YouTube. I just picked the first tutorial that popped up and followed the instructions. Surprise: NOT as straight forward when you do it yourself for the first time as it looked to be at the LBS.

This is the tutorial I used.


The part that took the longest was getting the tire loose. Man, I tried and failed a frustrating number of times until it finally came loose. Then I started taking the inner tube out because I seemed to recall the guys at the LBS saying it would be easier to not take it out completely so I could use the support of tire for the valve. But the tutorial wanted me to remove the entire tire, so I did.

Yes, I did deflate the inner tube prior to getting the tire loose, so when I had taken it out I inflated it again to see if I could find the hole. No such luck.

I have to say I was all proud like when I popped the tire back on the bike - rear tire - without any issues. Yeay! I tested out the brakes and they seemed to function normally.

But as I started biking, I noticed the tire going *bump* *bump*. I thought it might be the different looking valve and that I had inflated the tire too much, but I couldn't see anything as I climbed off to inspect. I figured the tire would adjust itself - or rather hoped it would.

It didn't.

So I stopped - again - to inspect it further. Turned out I almost got it right. But just almost. Like 97% right. The bumping came from not having popped the tire completely in again causing the tire to be deformed. I deflated the tire again in order to pop the tire back in completely, but by then I had run out of time. Instead of fumbling with the CO2 cartridges for the very first time, I decided to just walk the bike back home and deal with that when I return back home later today.

I am proud of myself for almost getting it right. I will take it in to the LBS after I fix it later to make sure I didn't mangle the whole thing.

Not allowed to dig holesat night? Since when is that a law?

On a random note, an actual conversation I had with my elderly neighbors the 6th time in a row that they’ve unexpectedly dropped by to meet hubby and I’ve had to tell them that he’s out of town again:

me: I swear to god he really exists.

neighbors:  Oh, we believe you.

me:  You probably think I’ve chopped him up with an axe and stuffed him under the crawl-space.

neighbors (slightly aghast):  … we would never think that.

Me.  Oh.  Well, you probably do now.

neighbors: ?

me:  We don’t even have a crawl-space.

neighbors:  Oh.

me:  Or a shovel.

neighbors:  Well if you ever need to borrow a shovel just let us know.  That’s what neighbors are for!

me:  Well, hubby is still alive.  So…I don’t really need a shovel.

neighbors:  Of course he is.  We just meant if you needed a shovel for…

me:  Oh!  …For non-murderous reasons. Of course.  Got it. Sorry.  I am not a good
conversationalist.

neighbors:  Ah.  Well, maybe we’ll stop by again on Saturday.

me:  Awesome.  I’ll be sure to hire someone to pretend to be my husband so it doesn’t look suspicious.

neighbors:  *…*

me:  That was a joke.

neighbors:  Oh.

me:  It wasn’t a very good one.

And then they never came back again.

Happy Friday. My first long bike ride takes place this weekend!