Changing a Tire

Ok so I have to admit another first......

On Sunday while out on our ride Missey had a flat. This was at about mile 17 of our ride. Can you say oh crap.? Nothing like the blind leading the blind. Well to make matters worse it was her rear tire which of course has the cassette attached. She had been talking for a few miles about the fact it had been five years since her last flat. God was smiling down on us that day and obviously in a bit of a feisty mood so next thing we hear is WSSSSSHHHHHH! Nothing like Karma right Missey?

So here we stop. It is 90 degrees outside. We of course have on a lot of black. And where we stopped was at a road crossing with no shade. We got off the bikes, took out the tire tools and the spare tube and CO2 cartridge. Started working on the flat. Got the tire off. Now covered in grease we tried to use the tire tools that Missey had with her. They were too small. So I pulled out my really super CUTE pink ones which match my bike and tried again. HA HA to those of you who laughed at my pink tire tools. They do work!

After about 15mins we were able to separate the tire from the rim and pull out the tube. A mere 10 minutes later we had the new tube in place and tried to inflate it with the CO2. Yeah well that did not work. We about froze off Missey's ring finger. LOL! There went one cartridge. Thankfully I had a couple more. We hooked up the second one and inflated the tire. Now we could see the hole where the glass had punctured the rubber. YUCK.

We spent the next 10 minutes putting the tire back on. After 30 minutes in the sun we were ready to go. So we packed everything back up, got on our bikes and started to pedal. As we got moving we suddenly realized that we were in the shade. WOW!! how amazing is that? If we had just walked our bikes across the road 30 minutes before, we could have changed the tire in the shade. Lord help! Like I said, nothing like the blind leading the blind.

So yes I guess when I have to be, I can be a bit of a grease monkey. But please don't tell all of the nice people that pump my gas for me. ;-) And yes I know I still rode off my bike trainer on Monday night. I plead the 5th!

Happy Training!

XOXOX,
Elizabeth