Flat

Last August, when I was fitter than I am now (it's all relative), I raced the Luray Olympic. Or I should say, attempted to race. About two miles before the end of the bike, I had a flat tire and I had absolutely no idea what to do. I pulled my tools and my spare tube out of my bag then stood there helplessly until a guy stopped to help. He succeeded in pinching my spare tube, leaving me with two useless tubes, no intact tube, and no ability to help myself. I was near tears when the sag wagon stopped, provided a new tube, and changed my flat for me.

I swore that I would learn to change a flat tire on the off season so that never happened to me again.

Fast forward to last week...

Megan and I met on Wednesday at 6 a.m. to ride. I must admit that I was cranky about getting up that early and in fact I had a major sleep deficit and a wee bit of a red wine hangover. I pulled my bike off the rack and started pumping my front tire. I finished, pulled the pump off the tire, and heard the unmistakable sound of air escaping. At a rapid rate.

&^%$.

No, I had not learned to change a flat nor even thought about it much since last August.

Megan looked at my sympathetically and inquired if I wanted to bag the whole thing. In fact I did but hell, I was already awake and dressed so I may as well try. I told her we could see how it went. I must admit I wasn't at all hopeful.

I pulled out my tools and my spare and proceeded to cram the tools into the side of the tire to get it out. Success! And much surprise. Megan and I looked at each other and both thought, hey that wasn't so bad. She is not a tire changing master either, but between the two of us we figured out how to get the old tube out and the new tube in. Then came what I feared would be my downfall - getting the tire back on the rim. We worked the tools, hit a few rough spots but in general it went on pretty easily. We looked at each other in amazement. I feared that we had done something wrong and circled the parking lot, but all was well. My speedometer even worked. We headed out and with limited time, only rode 12 miles. But still.

Sometimes, I amaze myself.