Not Even My Wife Reads This

I like working on my own bikes, but I'm not very good at it.

This morning I had a rear flat on my junker 1970s Azuki fixed gear.  Pumped it back up with the frame pump; it went flat again quickly.  Not a slow enough leak to defer the repair.

Pushed the bike a block to a nicer spot.  Removed the back wheel (with some difficulty; the quick release was on very tight), removed the tire, discovered my spare tube was Presta while my fixie has Schrader valves, decided to patch the tire instead, actually did a good job patching it, put the tube back in the tire and the wheel back on the bike, pumped up the tube, rode to work.  The flat cost me about half an hour; I was slow and careful fixing it, and I hadn't removed the fixed-gear wheel in a couple of years.

Got to work, and decided to pump the tire better using the floor pump there.  (I never get enough air in with a frame pump).  The tires (Nashbar Cheng Shin 27" cheapies) are rated for 90 psi, but past experience says they actually explode at 90, so I stopped at 85.  Went back to my desk.  A few minutes later,"Bang!"  What was that?  I didn't even realize it was my tire until someone told me.  My patch held, but the tube had a big gash in the side, so I either needed to use my Presta tube, or go to the bike store and buy a Schrader tube.  I opted for the Presta.

Wheel off again, tire off again, new tube in, and put it all back together.  Went pretty fast this time.  Unfortunately the tube started bulging out the Schrader-sized hole.  Not good.  An excessively handy guy at work managed to whittle a plastic washer into a near-perfect Presta-Schrader adapter.  (Thanks Mike.)  I put some rubber cement around it to keep the tube out of the small remaining gap, waited a few minutes for the glue to dry, then put the wheel back on the bike.  All done, but I didn't get the quick release quite tight enough.  So I tightened it some more, pushed really hard — and snapped the skewer.  (Looked like a vintage 1970s cheap skewer, so I'm not too surprised I broke it.)

Dammit.  Borrowed the company van, went to the bike store, bought a skewer (none were marked for separate retail sale but they gave me a used Shimano one out of the parts bin for $5) and a Schrader tube.  I couldn't get the skewer on tight enough by hand so I used pliers, which meant I now need to carry pliers in my bike bag, until I replace the replacement skewer with a better one.

The bike got me home fine.  I meant to go really slowly and carefully in case of further drama but ended up averaging 17 mph, about normal.

Tomorrow I'm going mountain biking.  Wonder what I'll break next.  As long as it's not bones…