Progress

Last weekend I decided that if any of my friends get a flat tire in the next month they must ask me to change it. How convenient that three hours after I made this decision Nick received a flat on a ride up to Jamestown. I had been putting off changing the tire until I had no other excuses and since today was the first day of my semi-early retirement there was no excuse. The house was clean, there were no errands to do, I have no money to spend...and the tire was looking at me convincingly from the back room. So I engaged in the task got to work.

Yes, I call it "work" because that's what it was, but not as fun. After spending 45 minutes and getting my hands very dirty I finally (by luck) was able to pry the tire off the rim. 20 minutes later I successfully replace the tube and tire back ON the rim. And then began to pump up the new tire. But guess what? It wouldn't hold air. And there was a loud "swishing" sound every time I pumped air into it. Which indicated that the tube had a hole in it. Which also meant that I would have to start the entire process all over again.

I've acknowledged to myself that there will probably be times on my bike trip that I sit on the side of the road and cry. I'm ok with that. But I'd like to actually begin the trip before a cry episode occurs. So I held back my frustration and began the task again. Getting the tire lever on the rim, failing to pull the tire off over and over again until finally I relaxed a little bit and took a look and thought to myself "it's going to work this time" and this time I believed myself. And it did. The tire separated from the rim. After I put the new tube on (again) I was very careful to not puncture the tube when putting the tire back on.

And the result was...it worked! The tire holds air. The bike is ridable. It looks like I will survive on this trip after all. So far.