Critical Flat

I was all stoked to ride Critical Mass. It'd been a hard week at work, crazy busy, and I was really looking forward to cutting loose with my friends.

Corinna wasn't feeling up to the whole thing, but she wanted a workout and so decided to ride me out of KCK at least. As we were riding along she said, 'You're almost flat.'

This is a shock. I ride with Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tour tires, which while heavy, are almost invincible. It's been at least a year since I flatted. I think maybe almost two years actually. Usually it's a nail, that's one of the few things these tires can't shrug off, but I can't find any damage to the tire or evidence of a nail.

But being that I rarely flat, I was really rusty on changing a flat. I got to a gas station, so I didn't have to do a hundred strokes on the frame pump to get the tire up and running, but it was still over 20 minutes by the time I got the old tube off, the new tube in, realized I'd left that stupid nut they put on a Presta stem on, took it all apart and removed that, reassembled it, inspected to make sure I hadn't trapped the tube between the bead and rim, and so on.

Corinna sat there keeping me company while I did this and I realized (and told her so), good thing you didn't watch me do this on our first date. Actually, back then I hadn't found the Schwalbe tires so I changed flats more often and was smoother at it. But if we'd been on that first date and I'd had a flat and been this fucking inept at changing it, she'd have deleted me from her phone and refused my calls. We never would have gotten to second base. True story.