Never a Dull Moment

That seems to have been the theme of my rides this past week. On Saturday morning, Katey and I decided to get a ride in before her big birthday bash. So, on a time crunch, we decide we should ride somewhere we have never ridden before. Great idea! It took us a half hour to even find the trail where we wanted to ride it. Once we finally got there, I realized I had a flat tire. Are you kidding me? Time to test my tire changing skills again. Katey, ever the teacher, decided to use this as a teachable moment. She started snapping pictures like crazy and told me to do a "how to change a flat tire post." Lucky for all of you, I don't feel like typing it all out. I did, however, decide to time myself to see if I could beat my previous time of like 20 minutes. No such luck. It took a total of 24 minutes. If this ever happens to me in a race, I'm totally screwed!

Here are a few of the shots Katey snagged.

Here's the hole. Maybe I could have just patched it, but I don't trust myself to do that.
Trying to get the tire back on...
Katey gives it a shot.

I was pretty impressed that I remembered everything, well almost. I forgot that you are supposed to inflate the tube a bit before you put it in the tire. I did remember half way through though. Katey and I were so excited when we finally thought we were done and started pumping it up.

FYI, after you pump up the tube, it should NOT be sticking out of the tire like this!

We were devastated! I'm sure there's some easy way to get the tire back on, but we never discovered it. We had some sore fingers by the time we were finished.

Ready to ride...FINALLY!

While we were still trying to get the tire back on the rim, this guy came off the trail and loaded up his bike. He didn't even ask if we needed help! Not that I would have taken it, but still! He should have at least asked! He just hopped in his truck and left!

It took forever, but there is something about successfully changing a tire that makes me feel hard core! Thanks for your help, Katey! I'm so glad you've been there to share both of my flat tire experiences!