Found that I had a puncture in the front tire of the new bike yesterday. At least it wasn’t some piss-arse little piece of glass – it was an inch-long roofing nail that’d poked a hole right in. Hard as it is to believe, I’m a tire-fixing virgin. Somewhow someone else’s always done it, or I’ve thrown away the whole bicycle in disgust, filthy that this kind of thing could happen to me.
After a whole bunch of prodding and wanging around with the levers I got it off, done, and back on. But no matter how hard I pumped I just couldn’t get it as tight again with the hand job. I’ll have to get one of those foot pumps. Also gave the whole thing a lube. Something was sqeaking and I couldn’t tell what.
It’s amazing the jump in fitness one can receive from a couple of weeks of regular riding. I’ve been gravitating toward the few local hills for a little more challenge. I’m getting used to the sound of my own heavy breathing. It’s getting longer each time before I get puffed out and have to pull back for a bit. The yardstick I go by is that I haven’t had a good ride unless I’m properly sweaty in the crotch. The other day I heaved over the breast of an unfamiliar hill only to find … more suburbia – what? I discovered a new suburb. It was like in Aliens – thinking one or two eggs was a worry then coming across a whole room of them.
Went back out to jump on it this morning and it’d gone down on me again. Damn.
Link de jah: howto fix a tire.
Hmm! I actually put a couple of new tyres on mine, long overdue, and a pair of brake pads on the front, which was a little scary; for a second I thought I should let the bike shop do it, but I think I managed to get it right.
That “sweaty crotch” business is certainly an interesting way to measure satisfactory performance. I might use the crotch dampness method myself from now on.
I’ll have another go at the puncture but I got a bad feeling I’ll be taking it all back to Rebel Sport and saying, ‘can you make him better?’.
Re: crotch sweat, while this post was all non-fiction, the main motive was to dirty up the search strings for August. ;^)