Remember Fearless Frank’s Flat Fiasco last July? Here’s the link: https://freehtt.org/2022/07/04/fearless-frank-fioris-four-front-flats-fiasco/. Something similar happened yesterday.
Thursday’s club ride was blessed with nearly perfect winter weather and amiable company. Someone described the Stockton Bicycle Club members as a bunch of “Geriatric, white privileged roadies”. I don’t know about the privileged part, but the other two counts were correct: the six riders ranged in age from 66 to 74. And we all ride 5,000 to 10,000+ miles on the road every year.
We rode briskly but at a sociable pace from Wallace to our favorite foothill coffee stop, Common Grounds in Valley Springs. We sat outside sipping java and eating various goodies (breakfast burrito for me) and enjoying the sunshine during one of the shortest days of the year. The weather and conversation were so enjoyable, we delayed our restart a little longer than usual.
As Jeri got ready to remount, she realized she had a flat front tire. So we are going to have an even longer delay. Normally fixing a front flat shouldn’t take much over 5 minutes. Normally….
Jeri is a ‘she’, and identifies as a woman, so I’m not ‘mis-pronouning’ her. Chivalry is not dead even if it might not be politically correct; I volunteered to do the change. It was my first time wrestling with Specialized Armadillo tires. The tires were incredibly hard to pry off of the rim. I was worried I would break the flimsy lever she had, so Ken brought me a more robust Pedro’s lever and I was finally able to dismount it.
I carefully felt the casing looking for the cause of the flat. I found it, a very sharp piece of wire most likely from a car or truck tire that lost some tread. It is a good thing I was easing my thumb along the tire slowly, otherwise I would have sliced my finger open.
There was no easy way to get the wire out of the tire. We needed tweezers or pliers, and we didn’t have any. But since we were at Common Grounds, our favorite coffee provider provided the necessary needle nose, and the offending wire was removed and disposed of.
I used a pump to put a small amount of air into the new tube, then managed, with help, to wrestle the tire back onto the rim. At this point I withdrew and left the inflation using a CO2 inflator to more experienced hands. I never feel comfortable with CO2 inflators ever since that day on Ebbets Pass when Steve was using one and somehow it turned into a bottle rocket.
Three cartridges later, we decided the tube wasn’t holding air. Someone speculated that I may have pinched it. I hadn’t; when we removed the tube we noticed a small hole near the valve that looked like a manufacturing defect.
We got another tube, and another cartridge. This tube needed a valve extender because the stem was too short for Jeri’s rims. Ken had one, but we couldn’t make it work with the CO2 inflator. So we finally resorted to a hand pump, and about 400 strokes later Jeri had enough air to ride home.
This could be a Stockton Bicycle Club record for longest tire change. Strava told me that I rode 3 hours and 11 minutes, but the total elapsed time was 4 hours and 58 minutes. About an hour of that was due to the flat fiasco. Good thing we are geriatric and retired. But white privilege is no protection against the Flat Fates.
Rich Freggiaro Cycling Blog 