Trail Troubles

Rick and I had planned this morning to FINALLY get on our bikes and really start to ride.  We tried to time the ride so we could leave about 9:00 AM after the traffic cleared from taking kids to school and driving to work.

Once we were in the garage, Rick started to add a little air to our tires since we had not ridden for a couple of days.  Problem #1 presented itself when Rick tried to put air into the second of my three tires.  He had changed one of my tires a few days ago because the valve stem leaked and it went flat.  When he tried to add air to the second tire, he noticed a large bulge at the bottom of the valve stem.  "This one is going to blow if we don't change it," he said.

By the time he finished changing my second tire, he was already wet with sweat.  He finished pumping up the third tire and then all three tires on his bike.  That, itself, was a workout.

We have never ventured further than a couple of times around the block this year, but we decided to go down the trail to see how far we could get.  We got on the trail by San Salvador and made it almost all the way to Michigan Avenue.  I had ridden ahead the first part of the trip, but we stopped to get some water and I told Rick to go ahead of me.

That is when I saw Problem #2.  Rick's right front tire was nearly flat.  I let him know and we pulled off the trail just short of Michigan Avenue.  He had a pump with him, but the pump and his valve stems do not match.  After much digging in the bags, he found the converter but still was having trouble fitting it onto his tire.  (Hand pumps are notoriously a pain in the rear to use anyway.)

We decided that I should ride home and get the car.  I came home as quickly as I could, getting a call from Rick just as I was turning onto our street.  Once home, I called him back.  He said that he had gotten the pump to work and was slowly making his way home.

Although this turned out to be a good workout for me (even I am sweating), this is not the way we wanted to enjoy a nice ride on the trail! I predict a trip to the bike shop to get all new inner tubes for our tires before we venture out again.