Equipment Issues Again!

It’s always something new and differrent to experience. And about every two weeks, that new and different experience seems to involve a learning incident.

Saturday I had a beautiful ride into work. Usually, I don’t make the commute on this day, but we were hosting a citizens GeoCaching outing. Go here to check out a cool uber-geek thing to do with the family or friends All you may need is a GPS, a compass and a little time. We had a great time looking for the cache. I found tiny crayfish, tadpoles and snails in a pond formed below a culvert from our melted Snow!! event on Friday!

The fun over, I hopped on The Beast, pointed north and headed for home. I was appreciating the great weather and the low traffic volume. A little past 1/3 of the route completed. I was buzzing across an intersection, and suddenly heard a Loud Zzzssssssssszzssssszszz and my front tire wobbled and sank.

The Beast’s front tire was flat. The Tire that was 15 days New! My slime filled 15 day old smooth mountain bike tires were already experiencing trouble. The beast is an inexpensive Target brand bike (Pacific), thus nothing is quick release about these tires. You need wrenches and sockets to get the front tire off. Plus I had no patch kit. I started walking… I called a friend…. I called the LBS that I got that installed the tires.

The owner of the shop was there and seemed a pretty cool guy. He removed the tire and pronounced it to have a Blown SideWall. So nothing I could have done to prevent this issue or avoid repeating it in the future. No charge and a new tire later, I was looking at a bike named ‘the long haul trucker’ by Surly and in the catalog at a bike named ‘the globe’ by Specialized. Unfortunately he didn’t have any commuter types available short enough for me to try out. He kept asking me what type of handle bars, pedals, seat, etc I preferred.. And all I could say was, “How would I know. The Beast is all I have ridden.”

I ended Saturday evening curled in my bed, looking at the pictures and reading the descriptions in the various bike and Yakima catalogs I had brought home. The gear-brands and even parts names were mostly Greek to me! Wishing that there was a Google translator that would take names like Shimanio and equate them with Edlebrock Delorto, Hurst, I daydreamed about the bike that isn’t yet mine, whatever it will be.