Ignorance is This
Category: Cycling/Running/Fitness...
Posted Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 05:42 PM [GMT-6]

The plan was simple: hit the road around 6:45 a.m., return around 8:15, have a leisurely breakfast, coffee, and newspaper, and then figure out what to do with the remainder of our Saturday.

Since the friends we usually meet for Saturday breakfast are out of the country, we decided to upend our schedule and try something different. Last night, I lowered the tandem from its ceiling nest, aired up the tires to the preferred operating pressure, and moved the bike to the front of the garage for a quick exit the next morning.

We arose on time this morning, got dressed, shot the dog, and I went into the garage to wheel the bike out for an on-time departure. Everything had clicked into place; all systems were go. Only someone forgot to tell me that a flat rear tire was on the schedule.

It's always the rear tire, by the way. It's far too easy to fix a flat on the front.

This is where it got interesting. I figured I'd just pop the wheel off the bike, peel the offending tube off the rim and replace it with a new one. Disconnecting the rear drum brake cable was less straightforward than I'd hoped, thanks to partially stripped threads on the bolt, but the more serious problem was revealed when I unrolled the new tube and started stuffing it under the tire casing – and finding that I had a good two inches of tube left unstuffed after working my way all the way around the rim.

One of the arcane mysteries of bicycling that I've never mastered in all my years and miles of riding is the rationale behind the fact that a 26" x 1.25" tube (or tire) is not always equal to another 26" x 1.25" tube (or tire). Apparently, there are alternate universes where bicycle tubes are made, and those measurements will vary, and the inevitable result is that at 7:00 a.m. on an otherwise fine Saturday in June, I'll find myself dressed in cycling garb, holding a tube that too freaking big for my wheel, and not having an alternative course of action.

(Did I mention that the flat was due to a gash at the base of the valve stem, a condition that cannot be repaired? I offer this detail in case you were wondering why I didn't just patch the silly thing.)

To shorten this sad saga, the bike shop opened at 8:00, so we had our breakfast, coffee, and newspaper first, then I took the old and busted tube in and asked the sleepy-looking young man to give me two new ones just like it (only without the gash in the valve stem, which I'd provide myself at some later date), thereby completely avoiding demonstrating my utter inability to grasp the intricacies of wheel sizing.

Back home, I replace the tube, remounted the wheel, and we were on the road before 9:00. The overall schedule still worked out; we just dealt with a different sequence of events.

As fascinating as I know this is for you to contemplate, here's the silver lining. First, we'd ridden the tandem for six months carrying a spare tube that wouldn't have worked had we experienced a flat while on the road – which we didn't. The flat occurred in the safety of our garage.

Second, while scrounging around for an alternative, including a desperate check of my single bike to see if its tube would fit (completely forgetting for a moment that that bike uses presta valves while our tandem is strictly a schraeder valve aficionado) I discovered that I wasn't actually carrying a spare tube on my bike, even though I thought I was. There again, I'd pedaled for months blissfully unaware that I was lacking a basic piece of backup gear – and gotten away with it.

Sometimes, I wonder if our guardian angel ever lobbies God for overtime pay.