After ’s fiasco, getting to South Melbourne today should be easy… I know where to turn into Inkerman street & I know where the building is!
Somewhere down towards St Kilda the bike didn’t feel quite right, then I realised that the front tyre was going soft — all that bloody glass I swore at yesterday. I made it through St Kilda to Middle Park, then stopped at Penny Farthing cycles to buy a new inner tube — I suspect that the spare I’m carrying has a slow leak.
Helpfully, the guy in the shop offers to pump it up for me, saving me from having to do it with the mini-pump I’m carrying. “There you go,” he says, handing it back. “Nice and hard.” Too right it was hard, I wondered what pressure he put in, but they were busy with the five other customers who all came in for inner tubes or puncture repairs, so I put the wheel back on the bike and continued on my way.
Half a kilometre up the road I glimpsed a flicker on the tyre, looked down thinking that I’d picked up something stuck to the tyre and was reaching down to flick it away when a sound like a rifle shot when off — the tube blowing out through a huge tear in the sidewall of the tyre!
Damn, damn, damn! Just how high did he pump that tyre up?
Walked the bike around the corner to the next bike shop, fuming gently to myself, and ask for a new tube and (now) a new tyre. As I’m standing there muttering about shops that over-inflate tyres, the owner from Penny Farthing walked in! I hadn’t realised that he runs both shops. He takes a quick glance at the tyre and tells me it’s buggered, all my fault, I should have bought a new tyre months ago….
Finally on my way again, $44 poorer, filthy dirty from two tyre changes and the road grime on the wheel and once again ten minutes late — just like yesterday.
