I wouldn’t have believed it! Three days in a row all I have to do is the fairly simple task of getting up a little bit earlier than usual, then riding in to South Melbourne to a training course…. OK, so I was a little bit late leaving this morning, but now that I know the way, and know where the building is, that shouldn’t have been a , and a new tyre should mean that all the glass in the bike lanes is not a problem — and they weren’t. I arrived at EXCOM in plenty of time, then went off to get changed — damn, damn, damn! Left my pants at home, so although I had a clean shirt, I only had my bike nicks to cover the bottom half for the day! Nobody said anything, but I stood out like a sore thumb all day! Maybe tomorrow I can finally get it right!
Then this evening there was more bike-oriented weirdness. Last night in a fit of enthusiasm I attacked the gorgon-like knot of inner-tubes in the basket in the kitchen and sorted them out into 26” mountain bike and 700C road bike versions, and pumped them all up, throwing out the obvious complete duds. Today the good ones were rolled up neatly, tied up in little bundles, and placed into labelled boxes, so hopefully we can use them, rather than going out and buying more and more new tubes!
Fetching the front wheel from Norky bike inside to fix the flat noticed last , I quickly discovered that it wasn’t a piece of glass causing a slow leak after my — somehow the sidewall of the tyre has split and the tube has exploded, much like what happened to the front tyre of my road bike ! I wouldn’t have thought it would be too hot in the shed, and I’m surprised that it blew sitting there rather than when I was riding! Regardless, after more than of service, the second of the very nice Hutchinson 1.2” slicks went into the bin, along with the little metal adapter that let the Presta valves fit through Schraeder-sized valve holes in the rim. The adapter had corroded solidly onto the valve stem, not even several of the more powerful of the nine million names of God could shift it.
Time to fit the spare tyre then, the pair of GEAX Street Runners have been sitting in the shed since the ride! I can’t remember the convoluted chain of events that lead to them being in the shed — something to do with a German backpacker convinced to come on the ride at the last minute, a mountain bike borrowed from Netty, a new pair of tyres that I bought on spec. a week earlier, some new tubes bought on the day and a whole lot of other begged, borrowed or acquired equipment… First success of the whole operation I guess, the tyre fits the rim, one of the tubes from the neatly-labelled 26” box fit the tyre, and the whole works holds air!
