My life deflated!

I love riding my bike. Feeling the wind on my face as I coast downhill or listening to the birds chirp as I pedal brings a smile to my face on any day. Even just watching the drivers with whom I share the road, because missing their silhouettes in parked cars could result in an accidental dooring, makes me somehow feel just a little more in touch with minutia that often goes unnoticed.

However as I walked home through the rain last night due to a flat tire, I felt a little… deflated. When I borrowed my partner’s bike to ride to the local adventure tours storefront for a spare, I was informed they didn’t carry the correct size inner tube for my wheel. Argh! That let out even more air from my love affair with bikes. I hit up the neighboring café for a much-needed, spirit-rising latte and contemplated the logistics of commuting to work for the next couple of days without a bike. You see, my boyfriend and I choose not to have a car. There are a multitude of reasons; we move between a ski town in Utah and a beachy island every six months. In the ski town, avalanches threaten cars. And who wants to pay to ferry a car on and off an island twice a year? Furthermore, we try to live a green life with a small carbon footprint and use few natural resources like fuel or electricity.  Not to mention how every co-worker seems to be constantly complaining about their cars; insurance prices, gas prices, resale value, car payments… Therefore, a bike for the six months we live near the beach usually works perfectly.

However, when it’s the Sunday before the Fourth of July, and you have two work shifts a mile away, a flat tire, no spare, and few alternatives for finding one; a little planning is necessary. Then, as the caffeine from my latte (in a reusable mug that I brought from home) started to kick in, a smile crossed my face. This smile was a result of more than just taking in the beautiful mountain views of Kauai as I navigated my borrowed bike. I had been smacked by my father’s old-fashioned common sense. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?!

I called the local True Value to confirm that they were indeed open on a Sunday and then pedaled in their direction. The counter lady pointed me towards the bike section and I found a patch kit. I felt a little guilty about the internal eye roll I had given my dad the last time I visited him and we needed to patch a bike tire. In my defense, it was the third patch that we were putting on an inner tube, so I think the eye roll over his frugalness was somewhat warranted, but this patch was going to be my savior for the next couple of days!

Following the instructions of the back of the patch kit and recollecting the motions my dad had used on the side of the road four months ago, my bike was back in commission in no time. (I also gave it a good cleaning and corrosion treated my chains while I was at it. I mean, if my fingers were already getting greasy, may as well!)

I still intend to get a spare to keep on hand for the inevitable flat of the future (I will not put THREE patches on my inner tube!) But my love affair with bikes is back in full force! How much more of a hassle would this have been if it had been a flat tire on a car? How much would it cost and could I get it done on a Sunday? To fix my flat I paid $4.63 (half of which was for the anti-corrosion lube that I put on my chain and will use over the next several months). I put about 30 minutes of time into my trusty, not-so-rusty, sidekick and now I can enjoy life behind handlebars once again.