Biking fun
Today, I had my first flat tire. As I was pulling out of the bike rack area at work, I heard a fairly steady thump, thump sound. I looked down and thought to myself, "You know, I'm pretty sure that my rear tire isn't supposed to stick that far out to the sides at the bottom." So I stopped, and took a better look. Yup, definitely flat. I hadn't gotten too far away from work, so I walked the bike back to the shade (a necessity, since it topped out at 98 degrees here, today) to try my hand at fixing it.
Fortuitously, last Sunday I decided that I had tempted fate long enough, and went down to the local bike store (Livermore Cyclery). While there, I bought a seat bag, a spare tube, a patch kit, and a pretty swanky multi-tool (what can I say, I'm a gadget freak with too much disposable income). I also got an on-frame pump to complement the pump I already had at home. I'd like to say that my buying this stuff so recently was prescient, but I think it's more likely that I was just stupid for not having gotten it sooner (especially considering how much use I get out of the bike). Having bought that stuff, I decided that I should probably learn how to use it. Enter the Park Tool website, where I read through how to pull off a tire, how to patch/replace a tube, and how to get everything running again. I will chalk up having read the site before setting out on the bike again to some fairly good common sense on my part.
Armed with a vague recollection of how to deal with my flat, I pulled the rear wheel off the bike and saw that there was pretty much no air at all left in the tire. Using my now so-handy multitool, I got the tire off and saw that the tube was likely ruined beyond repair (it was torn right at the valve stem. Anyone have any ideas why that may have happened?) so I decided to just replace the tube. That's when I hit my first snafu. It appeared to me that the spare tube I had was far too big for the bike wheel. Even partially inflated, it didn't fit snugly around the wheel. Getting a little skittish, I actually took the tube off the wheel and compared it to the broken tube. Turns out they were both the same size (so why is it that the tubes seem significantly bigger than the wheels?).
After getting the tire back on (that was surprisingly hard to do!), I reattached the wheel on the second try (the first time through I had cleverly gotten the chain to be completely on one side of the hub) and headed off. Total time: about 30 minutes. Not bad for my first attempt, I think. It was even sort of fun!
Anyway, that's my biking story for the day.
View this post on my blog
Fortuitously, last Sunday I decided that I had tempted fate long enough, and went down to the local bike store (Livermore Cyclery). While there, I bought a seat bag, a spare tube, a patch kit, and a pretty swanky multi-tool (what can I say, I'm a gadget freak with too much disposable income). I also got an on-frame pump to complement the pump I already had at home. I'd like to say that my buying this stuff so recently was prescient, but I think it's more likely that I was just stupid for not having gotten it sooner (especially considering how much use I get out of the bike). Having bought that stuff, I decided that I should probably learn how to use it. Enter the Park Tool website, where I read through how to pull off a tire, how to patch/replace a tube, and how to get everything running again. I will chalk up having read the site before setting out on the bike again to some fairly good common sense on my part.
Armed with a vague recollection of how to deal with my flat, I pulled the rear wheel off the bike and saw that there was pretty much no air at all left in the tire. Using my now so-handy multitool, I got the tire off and saw that the tube was likely ruined beyond repair (it was torn right at the valve stem. Anyone have any ideas why that may have happened?) so I decided to just replace the tube. That's when I hit my first snafu. It appeared to me that the spare tube I had was far too big for the bike wheel. Even partially inflated, it didn't fit snugly around the wheel. Getting a little skittish, I actually took the tube off the wheel and compared it to the broken tube. Turns out they were both the same size (so why is it that the tubes seem significantly bigger than the wheels?).
After getting the tire back on (that was surprisingly hard to do!), I reattached the wheel on the second try (the first time through I had cleverly gotten the chain to be completely on one side of the hub) and headed off. Total time: about 30 minutes. Not bad for my first attempt, I think. It was even sort of fun!
Anyway, that's my biking story for the day.
View this post on my blog