Vakkotaur

I've been working a night shift for a while now and seem to have, finally, adjusted my schedule to match it reasonably well. I had last night off and around 11 PM I was getting a bit antsy. I haven't been properly exercising for a few weeks (and yes, it shows...) between an illness and schedule adjustment. The night was not exactly warm, but not freezing cold.

I went for a bicycle ride. This was the first time I've been out riding at night and so it took me a little while to set up the lights as I hadn't needed them before. Fortunately I had put the brackets in place late Summer or last Fall.

The ride itself went well overall. There is very little traffic in Fairmont on after 11 PM on a weeknight. What traffic there was mostly didn't affect me or kept well away as it passed me. There was one near-incident, however.

I had no trouble on Albion Ave (the street other than parts of Hwy 15 that has a higher speed limit than everywhere else in town). Traffic lights were not an issue as they were either in night mode or I could ride up and trigger the pedestrian crossing. Even around Shenanigan's (bar) there was no problem. But a fellow on a cross street stopped for the sign, looked right me (I saw his face) and started to pull out in front of me. A moment later the officer stopped and let me go by without further incident.

I rather enjoyed the night ride. It was rather peaceful and the lower traffic was nice. Also, by being on a bicycle and in the street, or on a bike trail, folks are probably less suspicious (if they are even awake to notice) than they might be of a pedestrian walking late at night.

For some time I didn't ride the bicycle. This was for various reasons, laziness included. One of them was that the rear tire had a slow leak (which seemed to have disappeared when I checked again this Spring) and I wasn't sure just how to go about getting the rear wheel off of the bike and then changing the inner tube and reassembling everything. It's a ten speed and the thing looks complicated and I recall hearing people having seemingly endless trouble with the shifting mechanism. Go ahead and laugh now, get it out. I now know just how silly that all is. This evening I had to change the tire and tube.

I was out riding and things were going along fairly well when there was a *BANG* and I knew right off that the rear tire was no longer in working order. Looking at it, it was no simple thing that a mere patch might fix. The tire itself was truly worn out in a spot and even if the tube were patched, the patch wouldn't even last the trip home. It was a nice enough day and I wasn't very fair along, really, so I expected I'd walk the bicycle home and deal with things. Instead, an older gentleman, who was outside and heard the tire blow, was friendly but insistent upon seeing the condition of the tire that I let him give me and the bike a ride home. Rather than stand around arguing against it, I agreed - after telling him that I didn't want to have him go out of the way and it wasn't a big deal for me to walk. So I got a ride home. The fellow was once a milkman in town and so had some familiarity with most of the town, though he admitted he isn't as certain about some places as he used to be, it all being so long ago.

Once home, I looked at a few web pages on changing bicycle tires and dealing with rear tires on multispeed bikes. I'm not sure if it didn't occur to me to check the web years ago, or if there weren't as many good web resources then. After looking around a bit and seeing the same information in a few places I went to it. It was almost as easy as dealing with the front tire, which I had done a few weeks ago. The changing of the tire went a little easier too, perhaps due to the previous experience, perhaps due to the weather being a a bit cooler and rather less humid. Getting things back together was fairly easy. I spent quite a bit of time fiddling around, but the only real trouble was being sure that the tire beads seated properly without pinching the tube. And I was quite glad to have the new tire ready and waiting, rather than have to wait for another order to come in. I did go for a short ride afterward, to be sure of things. Evidently I did it right. I didn't have to walk home.

( Pictures of the blowout )

A few days ago I did stop in at the chamber of commerce and inquired about bicycle route maps and such. I was given two maps. One was the full city map, with the route and trail system marked and the other was a smaller simplified map that shows little more than the trail system.

The small map is probably more accurate about one thing. The big map shows a paved trail on the west side of Hall Lake that unless I am very much mistaken, is at best incomplete. I encountered that a few days ago. The trail is marked with a sign "Bike Route" a few yards before it just ends.

There is no list of place with bike racks, though there are a few that I missed earlier. The water park has a couple, as does the hospital, and a Salvation Army building (more a meeting place, I think. It's not the thrift store) and of course at least one school - I haven't checked others and don't particularly need to for myself.

Today was a fairly nice day, so I went cycling. A somewhat roundabout but not too bad route got me from home to Dairy Queen (which I haven't stopped at in about ten years) without being on the main streets very much. I had to try the Thin Mint Blizzard. It's good, but I don't need to (and probably shouldn't) do that again.

Next I went out to the airport but almost nobody was around, so I just came back into town. Getting off of the main street/road I wound my way to K-Mart but found the only place I could reasonably park and lock the bike was at the movie theater. The barrier in front of the gas meter is ideal for that, and that's well out of everyone else's way. You'd think K-Mart or the movie theater would have a bike rack somewhere. Nope.

After eventually finding what I was looking for in the store, I cycled home. It was something of a workout, but only because heat, distance, hills, and that I haven't been doing that for so long. No tire problems this trip.

Once home I decided to have one last look at the blown tube I replaced. I found that my earlier patch job wasn't very good and it didn't surprise me much. Evidently there were two things I did wrong. One, I used "glueless" patches which I gather are about as good as "solderless" connectors ("solderless" is another word for "useless" there) and two, I rushed it. I did try a proper glue patch, but the result was unsatisfactory due to the previous patch attempt. Rather than have the tube tempting me any more, I cut it so it can't be patched. I did save some of the remains - it can become patches if need be. Hopefully I won't need to resort to using it that way.

And when all that was taken care of and I'd been back in the house a while, then it rained a little.

A few days ago I bicycled from home to the Fairmont airport. I tried to stay off of the three main streets or roads that I would drive on to get there. I found out that two of my alternate road choices were gravel and not very easy going. And to make it worse, somewhere along the way (might have been the gravel roads, might have been in town on pavement, a tire was punctured and developed a not-very-slow leak. The result was that I had tough going before (and after) I noticed it. I made my way back to Shopko and bought a portable pump and got enough pressure to last me until I got home, if barely.

I went looking for the leak and I found it. In doing so I noticed the tire was showing signs of rot so just changing the tube would likely be pointless. I went looking for a replacement and found none in town (27x1-1/8 inch isn't a commonly stocked thing in the age of mountain bikes and the like) but I have a couple on order now.

I did pick up a patch kit, mainly to get the tire levers I'd need for changing the tire. After a couple days I got a bit antsy and decided to try to patch what I had. After all, it would be good practice and even if I botched it badly, I would hardly be any worse off. I patched it, or so I thought. When I checked, I found I either missed the puncture or only got one of a couple. Thus I got to do it again. The tire seemed to hold air, or at worst have a very slow leak. One slow enough that I could ride for a while and not be too concerned. And I had the portable pump to deal with things if need be.

So today, overconfident, I started out for the movie theater and made a point of stopping at a gas station on the way to use their compressed air to get more pressure than the manual pumps seem to be able to generate. I probably should have just turned around and come home as I could hear the leak. But I was about half-way there or more, and I had my portable pump. So on I went.

I saw the movie, and got back to a flat tire as I had pretty much expected. Out came the pump and I got some pressure... and the pump failed. "Schwinn Quality" (as the card the pump was on proclaimed) is evidently even worse than Ford quality. Not good. But I figured I could just make it back to the gas station. I almost did. I walked the last little bit. Got more air. Hoped I could get home on that. I did, but the tire was losing it fairly fast and I really felt it as I went on. It wasn't just biking on a hot Summer afternoon. It was hard biking on a hot Summer afternoon. How hard? When I got home it was time for "Rennie Gatorade" - a drink of pickle juice, as plain water just wasn't doing it. Sound bad? Well, it tasted good to me. When that tastes good, you need it. I needed it. If you ever need a demonstration that fuel mileage is negatively affected by under-inflated tires making the engine work harder, try riding a bike with an under-inflated tire. It sucks.

I won't be making another patch attempt on that tube and tire. I'll wait for the new tires (Kevlar reinforced for greater puncture resistance) and then put on a new tube (allegedly self-sealing) as well. I've heard of folks concerned about bike weight worrying about the reinforcement adding a few ounces. I'm not concerned about that. I can more make up for that by shedding some of my own weight, and I really want tires that hold air well.

Oh, I do plan on biking to the airport again. But I have a different alternate route in mind. One that's completely paved, even if I do end up on one of the main roads for a bit. I also plan on getting another portable pump, just in case I need such a thing, and hopefully it'll be one that will last a while.