Flat tire blues

Well one of my 40th year bucket list items is FAST approaching!  I decided this was the year I was going to do the FULL week of RAGBRAI.  Of course, going in a rag-virgin, I had no real concept of the needed amount of training when I blissfully signed up.  I happened to chat with a coworker that has done RAGBRAI for years and asked her how much time she spent on her bike through the summer to get ready.  At the time, I was aiming for 2-3 rides a week of about 15-20 miles each.  When she told me she logged 100+ a week, all summer, I seriously wondered what I'd gotten myself into!

So June saw me stepping up my biking game so that I didn't actually die in my 40th year of life.  Since I have Monday and Friday off, I don't really have any excuse for not finding the time to get on my bike, right?  In conjunction with my training step-up plan, Bella found out she got accepted into the University of Iowa Junior Volunteer program.  This meant that I was officially trapped in Iowa City for 3 hours every Monday morning, while Bella worked her volunteer shift at hospital.  PERFECT!  Lets go explore the Iowa City trail system!!!

The Terry Trueblood recreation area is fabulous and connects to the Iowa River Trail, so with a bit of creative looping, I figured out how to get 30 not-too-completely-boring-mile rides in.  By end of June, I had a pretty good Monday routine going.  Then one morning as I beat Bella to the car to load up my bike, I ran into the thing I have dreaded most as a bike rider, a bike tire FLAT.  My very first one!!!!  SON OF A.....  Well, I threw that bike and its sadly deflated front wheel into the car, hell-bent on getting my ride in.  I dropped Bella at hospital at 9am and checked on opening time at World of Bikes, 10 am - POOH.  So I drove to the shop to wait and decided, fuck it, I'm gonna figure this out myself, I have a cell phone with google and a stubborn attitude.  :o)  So after watching a great video and pulling all the tools out of my pouch (including the spare tube), in 15 minutes I had managed to get that new tube inflated and bike tire reinstalled!  WOOT!  I threw bike back in car and headed to the rec area.  Luckily the recreation area is a 2 mile loop around a pond.  Not fully trusting my tire handiwork, I decided to do a few loops around the pond for safe measure as I'd much rather walk a bike with a flat back 2 miles instead of 12...  After about 4 loops, I finally had confidence that I had successfully taken care of the tire and went off on my normal route knocking out a 20 mile ride.

Fast forward to this Monday.  I was running late, so I threw bike into car as usual but didn't spend time checking tires.  Instead I threw my pump into back, with plan to pump up tires when I got the rec area.  As I pull bike out, much to my disappointment, my BACK TIRE had a flat.  FUCK FUCK FUCK.  This is a little more tricky as there are all these geary things hooked onto the back tire.  UGHHHH.  But you know what?  I flipped the front tire in a matter of minutes, surely this wouldn't be that bad.  And since I'd just blown a tire 2 weeks ago, I had conveniently solicited Amazon Prime for a pack of new tire tubes, just in case.  So after about 15 minutes of fighting, I had back tire off and the tube out of tire.  There was a really tiny hole.  I have a patch kit in my tool set, but wasn't fully sure how to use it successfully so I pulled out the brand new tube I'd ordered.  I'm about 30 min in now and sweating, did I mention it was nearing 90 out?  Finally I get the tube in and the tire reinstalled back on rim.  Time to pump it up and get going, whew!!!  So I started pumping away, targeting my 100 PSI marker.  It was at about 90 when I heard a loud pop. You have GOT to be kidding me???  The new tube blew!   I'm officially dripping in sweat and covered in bike grease and I really want to throw something or sit down and cry.

So I took a deep breath, went and got some wet wipes out of front of car and wiped myself off and took a drink of water and asked myself why was this frickin' bike tire making me this upset?  Turns out, it was way more than the tire behind my mood. 

I'd just been through another round on Tinder, to no avail.  At this point, my Tinder tolerance is all of a week, before I need to shut down my account for a few months.  This last round culminated with me all excited for a first date with a new guy.  I happened to find out we had a mutual friend before the date.  I reached out to friend to get the down-low on the guy and my friend kindly but strongly warned me off saying this guy was a serial womanizer.

BLEHHHH....

This is the flat tire of dating life.   Its frustrating and sometimes it hurts.  But as I sat there sweating and stewing, I decided, you know what?  I still want to ride, both my bike AND this crazy roller coaster called love.  So I patched the original tube with my patch kit and I got my bike ride in on Monday.  And I'm giving myself a Tinder break for a month and then I'm getting back on the roller coaster.  I still believe he is out there, so I'm going to keep riding and one of these days, I'll find my unicorn.    But I sure hope he knows how to change flat bike tires!!!