Couffehrwhey!

You may have noticed, from my blog posting during the last 6 months or so, a conspicuous absence of blog post about bicycle-related mishaps. Especially given my well-documented foray into abjectly terrible bicycle karma last spring, this is perhaps something of a shock. I've even been wondering to myself (which, of course, is part of what got me into my bicycle mess last year) about how unnoteworthy my non-problems with the bikes has been. My friends down here have noticed too, that I haven't been complaining or needy do to bicycle problems.

Some part of the blog-absence of the bicycles is simple enough to explain, since they were in storage from May-August. But still, given my track record, the fact that I've been riding these two bikes on a regular basis since mid-August (2 whole months!) without incident is easily the longest span I've had without bike trouble since I got down here. Come to think of it, I haven't had such a long bike-friendly period since leaving Pittsburgh back in '04--I don't think I ever blogged about my bicycle-related unhappiness in Portland, but needless to say, it was a debacle. And I did have one bike ride over the summer, with a friend of mine in Brooklyn, and that was pretty well mishapful, since the bike I was riding steadily disintegrated beneath me as I was riding it. Oh well. But the main reason that my bikes have been doing well is that I switched to self-sealing inner tubes last April (the third of the above linked posts covers this transition), and the things definitely work.

So, of course, since I'm blogging this now, something must have happened. What? I've figured out how puncture-proof tubes get punctured. Basically (and I found this out this morning as I investigated the tube of the back tire of my hybrid to determine why it had gone flat the night before), a sizable splinter of wood had become lodged into the extra-thick outside wall of the tube, and then, at some further occasion become jammed hard enough through it that it punctured the weaker inside wall, causing an unsealable leak. Interesting (mildly), really. I don't know where the splinter came from - I do recall though, late last week, that the tire suddenly lost some amount of air, which I was surprised at since these things have been generally air-tight, and I definitely know the bump in the road that finally drove the splinter home.

I guess I'm mostly just blogging my learning curve here--when your puncture-proof tire leaks air, even if it fills back up just fine, take the time to investigate the tube anyway.

So I hopped on the road bike this morning, which is the nice thing about having two bikes, intending to swing by the local bike shop (the bike shop of the second of the two above linked posts) and get a slight wobble taken out of its back tire and pick up a couple more tubes for the hybrid. On the way I noticed that my left pedal was get progressively looser and looser.

At the shop, I gave them the very short list of outpatient tweaks for the road bike, which now included tightening the pedal for me. They quickly came back and said the pedal was busted and needed to be replaced, and they didn't have any replacements in stock. Argh! So it'll be ready on Friday, now, and I walked to campus and am writing this post. Kinda frustrating, though I suppose it's reasonable that when you ride a 30-40 year old European bicycle they're not gonna just have a pair of pedals kicking around for it. I dunno. When it drizzles, it drizzles mightily.