March 17, 2008

  • Saturday, March 15

    I watched cartoons all morning and then ran errands with Mr. Poe.  After lunch, I headed down to REI to see about this wheel of mine.  It's been a slightly frustrating experience.  My technical knowledge of bicyles is a lot lower than you might think given how much time I spend on them.  Suffice it to say I'm a lot more bikey-bikey than thinkey-thinkey.  About a month ago I got a new tire for my commuter bike and I blew two tubes trying it get it on the rim.  It would go on and I'd start inflating and at about 80 pounds of pressure there would be a gunshot like sound as the tube exploded.  This had never happened to me before and I've changed a lot of tires between the ones on my bike and the ones on other people's bikes when I've led training rides.  I'd bought that kind of tire before and the one I'd gotten didn't seem right.  So I took it back to the store where one of the mechanics, we'll call him Noel, basically called me an idiot who didn't know how to change a tire and he managed to get it on and inflated without any explosions so he must be right.  I'd been taken down a notch.  A whole notch!  So I was surprised a week later when I went to go home over lunch and found that the tube had exploded yet again this time without me even being on the bike!  Yes, it scared the heck out of the guys in the parking garage where I keep my bike.  So I changed it out and went on my way.  And then a week later it happened AGAIN.  Very troubling.  Because if had happened on a descent I might have had a lot of problems stopping which could be catastrophic.  So I took it in and another mechanic, we'll call her Erin, went over my tire and tube with a fine tooth comb and told me that she thought it was a coincidence.  Coincidence??  How on earth could that possibly be??  But she's worked on my bike a bunch of times and I didn't have another explanation handy so I went with that.  And then my tire exploded AGAIN.  At this point I was pissed.  So I took the bike down to REI and spoke to another bike mechanic.  We'll call him Joshua.  And we talked about what had been happening and I brought in one of the exploded tubes and I told him that the only thing it could be is a tire defect that wasn't showing up until the tire was at pressure because so many people had looked at it without any useful solutions.  Joshua was not helpful.  First he told me that it was because I didn't have rim tape on my wheels.  The wheels that were two years old.  That had never had rim tape.  I told him that wasn't a good explanation.  Then another bike mechanic, we'll call him Larry, had a nice hard look at my tire and noticed some exposed beading (wire) which would have been causing the tube explosions I was experiencing.  Then Joshua said to me that he thought the damage on the tire was caused by my brakes rubbing against it.  I said to him "How can that possibly be the damage is on the part of the tire that goes inside the rim.  It's impossible that the brake pad could have ever touched it."   He looked at me and agreed and then I returned the tire that had been giving me so much trouble and exchanged it for a new one.   I'm not really sure what to make of all of this.  I have limited knowledge of bicycle mechanics and I need to rely on the mechanics at my shop but I wasn't given good advice.  And I can't help but thinking that if I had trusted my instincts and returned the tire when it first started giving me problems than I wouldn't have all of this drama.  And I'm likely to be a little leery about having any of the mechanics who worked on this issue with me except for Larry do anything complicated on my bike again.  I think I deserved better.  And boy won't my cheeks be red if a tube explodes on the new tire and it turns out to be the rim!

    After all that I headed out Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose to Wilder to Diamond to Monterey to Circular and into City College and then I headed over to Geneva to Bayshore to Guadalupe Canyon Parkway.  It was a gorgeous day up there and I loved it:

    This is Brisbane from above:

    I came out of the canyon and took East Market to San Pedro to Eastmoor to Westmoor to Skyline to the Great Highway where it was super windy with sand blowing everywhere to Taravel to Dewey to 7th Ave to Hugo to Arguello to Frederick to Cole to Carmel to Clayton to Corbett and then home.

    Bike Mileage:
    Today                                    28.3
    Week to date                       234.1
    Month to date                      559.6
    Year to date                      1,544.9
    Remaining to Goal             8,455.1
    Over (Under) plan              (504.3)