It was a day when I knew the Gods were not smiling down upon me. I wanted to go for a short bike run, get the kinks out of the legs, make sure the bike likes Ocean City burn off the Lobster Stuffed Mushrooms from the night before. I should have known better when this morning when I went for my biking shorts and found a surprise instead. My sweet little puppy decided that she didn’t want me biking so she ate the padding from inside my expensive Pearl Izumi bicycle pants. She sat there innocently looking at me, “Why do you want to go out there anyway?”
So I decided to see if I could salvage the pants and try them out on my ride. But the Gods were not done with me yet. Moving into the halfway mark and getting ready to cross a bridge, the bike felt funny, that’s when I noticed the flat. Curse you Gods! I thought as I stopped by the side of the road next to a busy highway. I’d been to Clemmons Bicycle for the tire changing class, I had a pouch that was supposed to contain all the pieces, so this was my first attempt at changing a flat tire. I prayed to the gods for help.
Opening the kit, I spilled the contents on the roadside. Hmmm, 20 dollars where did that come from? My sweet husband stashing that in there for my rainy day? I could call a cab? I thought of waiting that hour after a ride for him to pick me up and silently cursed not knowing of the bucks in there. I take off my bicycle helmet and reach for my McGyver Hat (if anyone does not know who McGuyver is, go and read your history books – specifically ancient totally lame TV shows) In front of me sat all the pieces to change a tire. Briefly I thought, I could lay the bike sideways and with those CO2 cannisters and one match and two pieces of wire turn it into a rocket ship and blast myself back home. But out of the fantasy and into the present. I had to start by getting the tire off the rim, luckily there’s tools for that job and after one broken fingernail and several curse words, the tire was off and inner tube thrown to the side. When I put the new on one, I stood there for a minute thinking, this is bigger than the rim, did I buy the wrong innertube? (all my cyclist friends can laugh at this point and send a nice big DUH my way) After contemplating the inner tube, I pulled out my phone thinking about calling a cab. Damn, no service. Wait I can send text messages, let me update my Facebook status because I’m sure everyone cares about where I am!)
Back to the tire, my thought process was that I was going to live with the inner tube I have, hoping that inflating it will make it stay in the tire long enough to get me back 10 miles. I put the tub on the rim, put the tire around the tube then come to the CO2 cannisters used to fill it with air. I have two and as I fool with the hookup I hear a PFFFFT and SSSSSSS and curse the gods again as the air in the canister did not go in the tire but floated up to the heavens as an offering to them. Looking at the second canister, I am reminded of McGuyver again – trying to make his smoke alarm battery defribulator work with two pieces of braces wire and a piece of aluminum foil. “We don’t have enough Power Robert, we’ll have to give it one more shot and hope that it works) I screw in the canister and with a silent prayer (I am sorry for cursing you, what I really meant to say was I love you. Can you make this canister work?) I hit the button on the inflator and smile as I hear the air go into the tires. The tire feels good, I’m stoked that I was able to do this myself and just to play with me some more, the clouds open up and theres a sprinkle of rain as I start my ride back.
A guy n a beach bike rides up behind me and says, “Sweet ride.” If I were 20 years young I’d think he was looking at my ass (which is sweet) but being the athlete I knew he meant my bike. Maybe that was the sign that the gods wanted me to ride. I come home to the dog chewing on my brand new running shoes, could this be a sign?
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