Sweater Project

It never rains but that it pours.

So, my friend Mike has decided that he’s going to do a triathlon. He’s never done one before, but he’s dead serious about it and he’s really doing a good job of educating himself. One of the things he mentioned this morning was that he’d like to know more about bike mechanics so that he can solve any problems that spring up during his first competition.

Well, today was a freaking godsend.

We started out on a nice, simple ride with a group of friends. About a half mile into it, Mike pointed out that his bike computer wasn’t working. I suggested he adjust the sensor on the forks; it turned out that earlier in the day I’d put his wheel in backwards, so the computer magnet was on the wrong side of the wheel. D’oh.

About a mile into the ride, Kelly’s rear tire started to go flat. We pulled over and our friend Steve started to replace Kelly’s tire. Mike pulled up and showed us that his saddle was coming loose. The bolt that keeps the seat level had come loose and the saddle was beginning to tilt to the point where Mike couldn’t stay on it.

I rode ahead to the rest of our group and got them to come back. One of them, Ingrid, had a set of wrenches in her saddle bag that Mike could use to repair his seat. But by the time we’d all got back together, Mike had figured out another way to fasten his seat bolt, and Steve had replaced Kelly’s tire.

So we regrouped and continued on our ride. About another two miles down the road, Kelly’s tire started going flat again. The rest of the group continued on and I stayed with her to patch the tube. We checked it out and found that there was a sharp, miniscule shard of rock embedded in her tire. Under pressure, it was just enough to puncture the tube. So I showed her how to use a patch kit. We fixed the tire (again) and continued on.

All in all, I only got to ride about ten miles. But it was a nice ride and I felt good that I got to impart some of my hard-won bike knowledge to Kelly. Next time she has a flat, she’ll know what to do.

And I suspect Mike is going to kick ass in his first triathalon. I’ll be there with my digital camera, so the blog will be replete with photos of his suffering.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 29th, 2004 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.