Ching Ching Ching Pow

There is only one other human being on earth that would understand that reference (two now since I told Dan about it earlier this afternoon), and I haven't seen or heard from that person in nearly 50 years. I suspect he is not a reader of this blog, given that there are only a few dozen of you out of the 300 million or so in this country.

In the summer of 1972, just after my 8th birthday, our family moved from the DC area up to Rochester, NY - more specifically, Pittsford. Across the street and one house over was a boy of my same age named Jon Wight - the first person I ever met that spelled his (first) name correctly. Jon moved away after 7th grade so this story takes place when we were around 10 years old. He and I became fast friends, spending most of our free time together, playing whiffle ball, collecting pennies and bleaching them so they'd be all shiny and new, and riding our bikes. Our favorite place to ride was to the Village of Pittsford, maybe a mile away, but at that age it seemed like a big adventure. We'd ride up to the top of the neighborhood, cut through the farmer's field, past the high school and into the Village. Our purpose was usually to buy baseball cards (10 packs for $1) and occasionally stop for a milk shake. The bikes we had were the old banana seat, high handlebar variety, before we were big enough to get 10-speeds. On one such trip, I had to stop at the gas station and fill one of my tires with air. The air hose was a bit like an old gas pump. As it would fill with air, the little counter would go around for each pound of pressure and make a ding. Neither Jon or I had ever used such a sophisticated machine before and 1) didn't realize you were supposed to set the desired pressure or 2) what the proper pressure for the tire was. (3 would be we had no idea what pressure was in the first place). We attached the air hose to the tire and the machine went to work - quickly. Before we knew what was happening, the dings were coming rapid fire and then the tire exploded.

Fast forward a few years. This morning I woke up in the hotel room and, not unexpectedly, found my tire flat. It had a slow leak yesterday afternoon but we were able to reinflate the tire a couple times and covered the last 35 miles without any real incident. I expected it would go flat overnight so I wasn't too worried. I inflated the tire and went to breakfast. When I got back, the tire was already flat again. Problem. We took the tire off and patched two separate leaks, reinflated it again and hit the road. About 2 miles later, we made the first of what would turn out to be 7 stops over about 13 miles to reinflate the tube. I had no more spares, and we only had about 25 miles further but it wasn't going to make it. Dan's son met us and gave us a lift into town. After dropping the rest of our stuff at Dan's house, we headed back to the bike shop to get a couple new tubes. We took the bike and asked the guy if he wouldn't mind looking at the tire and seeing if he could find what kept causing the leaks. We had had no luck when we checked the inside and outside of the tire. The leaks were showing up in different spots on the tubes so we were baffled. Sure enough, he found two small metal slivers stuck in the inside of the tire, in addition to two new holes AND the holes that we had patched this morning. He also found two large holes on the inside of the rim, both with pretty jagged edges. After retaping the rims and covering the holes so they wouldn't come in contact with the tube, it was time to put a new tube and be on our way. Alas, as I discovered last summer, no one carries a 27.5 x 1.65 tube. We called around to several different shops in Springfield and no one had it. A couple places had 27.5 x 1.75 so we were going to go buy a couple of those and bring them back. Before we set out, the mechanic decided to try a tube that was another size bigger. It took two of them several minutes to get the tire back on the rim and the tube installed. They finally got it done and inflated the tube. A few seconds later, the tube exploded. It sounded like a gunshot. The explosion was strong enough to blow the cassette (rear gears) off the hub and axle. Several people came over to make sure everyone was all right. They were. That seemed like a good time to leave and go get the other tubes. I will be lucky if the rim/tire/tube combo makes it the last 130 miles.

Final stopping point today after the sprint-pump-sprint-pump etc. effort for 13 miles

The exploded tube. Dan's fingers are on the INSIDE of the tube

Actual distance was 13.3 but I had shut Strava off after the second stop because I thought we were done. I forgot to restart until the 3rd stop. I would sprint as long as I could until the tire started going down, stop and refill it, then repeat. The longest single stretch was about 3 miles.