Okay, I probably deserved that

After yesterday's cruelty, I probably had some karmic recompense coming. Insinuating someone is a complete and utter moron just because they fail to pay even the scantest attention to a given question might be a bit beyond the pale.

On an (possibly) unrelated note, I decided to ride my bike to work this morning. I made sure to go to bed early, get up a few minutes early to allow extra time.

I showered, shaved, dressed, and went to pump up my tires. Back tire, no problem. Quick, easy. Aired up. Ready to go.

Front tire...about 3 pumps in it starts leaking. I reset the stem. I pump. It leaks faster. I give up and drive.

I was just going to let it sit until payday, but the weather is so nice out and expected to be so bad later I decided to go get it fixed. Off to Performance.

At first he saw it leaking but could not find the problem. Finally he found it. Sure enough, big hole ripped in the stem. He thought a new tube would be fine.

I, however, have a long history of needing tube after tube after tube. I still had the original tire on the front and probably better than 7 or 8 hundred miles on it by now.

Last year my good friend Bob Tres helped me with a similar problem on the back tire and recommended Gotham tires. After having to replace the tire something like 4 times prior to that and zero after it despite having ridden two or three times as far after that replacement as I did before, I decided just to go with that since it is just 13 bucks or so for the Gotham tires which do miracles.

But of course the size we had put on they no longer have available.

We found the next size up, he put it on, I paid, home I went.

The bike I ride is blessed with quick-release tires, designed to be so easy an untrained and blindfolded chimpanzee can install them.

Having no chimpanzee in me, I am incapable of performing this simple task. For whatever reason I could not get the disc to fit into the brake. I fought it. I spun it. I tried a handful of things. I got frustrated as I always do when incapable of performing even the simplest task.

I went and researched it on the computer. I watched some incredibly poorly made youtube tutorials and some surprisingly well made ones.

Not one of them addressed the issue of getting the disc back into the brake pad.

I am apparently the only person on earth to fight this issue.

Frustration growing.

I went back over, looked at it a long time, finally decided the magnets had sprung out of position. Spent another length of time figuring out how to get them where they should be. And only 40 minutes after returning home I was able to complete the 30 second task of installing a quick-release wheel.

Tomorrow I will attempt to ride to work. I will not rely on the front brake because it is not properly installed. But the tire is on, it is pumped up...and I managed it successfully.

It probably would have fixed itself if not for my snarky post of yesterday.

I apologize for nothing.

2 comments:

Riot Kitty said...

Having just read your last post, I don't think you screwed up your karma ;)

Holland said...

Hey, you did install a quick-release wheel... you did it!!!