May 2012

I’d happily pony up any co-pay for a bike doc at the right time.

I’ve been riding ____________ (still unnamed bike) quite a bit these days, and–knock on wood–have not had a flat tire yet. But I know that day will come, and I will be left, probably in tears, as I take 30 minutes to do what most cyclists can do in 5. I wrote this story about how I suck at changing flats for Bicycling magazine at least five years ago, and, sadly, it applies as much today as it did when they published it.

I felt invincible pedaling across the George Washington Bridge on my brand-new, triple-chainringed red wheels, the first bike I’d owned since my three-speed Schwinn 15 years prior. The day before, I had taken a few laps of Central Park, clicking my first pair of cleats into and out of the pedals, the only mechanical skill I thought I needed for my new wheels. I was reveling in seeing the pavement fly beneath me, until I heard a “psssst” coming from my front wheel. The thought crossed my mind that it wasn’t a good noise, so I turned around but kept pedaling, confident I could cover the 5 or so miles back home to New York City. Wrong. Within a few more pedal strokes I stopped dead on the rim. I clacked 400 yards to a gas station, tears streaming down my cheeks, feeling as if I was stranded with nobody around for hundreds of miles, and not in suburban New Jersey on Route 9W, cars flying past.

I stood at the station for a while, wondering if the air pump could somehow reinflate my tire. (I had no idea there was a tube in there, or that it had something called a “presta valve,” which wasn’t compatible with the pump’s chuck.) Too embarrassed to ask for mechanical help from the attendant–a good decision, in hindsight–I asked him for a phone book. Twenty minutes later I stuffed my bike, wheels not released (I had no idea they did that), into the back seat of a taxi, jumped into the front seat and bit my cheeks so I wouldn’t cry in front of the cab driver.

When I told my boyfriend, Grant, about my adventure over the phone, he didn’t judge me for being so–what’s the word?–stupid. Instead, that night, he brought over a seatbag, a minipump, tire levers and spare tubes for my new red ride. He knew enough about me, still clearly stinging from my ignorance, not to offer instruction; instead, he quietly fixed my flat. I can’t remember if I had told him at that point in our relationship that I loved him, but I definitely knew for sure then.

He eventually became my husband and, not surprisingly, my bike mechanic.

Fast-forward 10 years, and I know how to change a flat, kind of. Grant eventually taught me. But out of the 10 or so times I’ve flatted, I’ve fixed it successfully just once without any help. Because of flats I couldn’t figure out, I have: hitchhiked on Interstate 25 outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico; waited on the 3-mile loop of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for Grant to lap me and realize I was no longer behind him; called Grant on my cell phone at least five other times to drive to me either to change my tube or take me home.

I’m a girl–in a stereotypical sense that my empowered, post-Title IX ego has trouble accepting. Anything remotely mechanical is a mystery to me. I am intimidated by power tools. I do not know where to pour oil into my car. I have no idea what purpose a derailleur serves on a bike.

The thing is, I’m a good cyclist. As a former elite rower–my crew won the junior world championships in 1995–my quads have some serious horsepower, even though they’ve shrunk a few sizes over the years. I have completed two half-Ironmans, and I flew through the Santa Fe Century, feeling stronger at mile 90 than I did at mile 15. At my last indoor power cycling class at Carmichael Training Systems, I averaged 278 watts for eight minutes, about what Grant can pull. I’ve taken the hard-core preseason class for the past two years because I’m intrigued by how strong I can be as a cyclist, and because it takes place in a contained environment where I can’t be stranded by a flat.

One of my biggest nightmares. I’d rather hold a tarantula.

I’ve never put my power to the road with any regularity because of my anxiety toward that confounding, beastly machine. In fact, I rode outdoors exactly three times last summer, only on occasions when I was either with a group or Grant was on call. My attempts at changing flat tires are dirty, ugly, frustrating affairs that cause such resentment toward my bike that I often leave it racked for months afterward. Lying in bed one night, pondering my complicated relationship with cycling, I said to Grant, “I mean, I can change a flat, but I just don’t like to.” He replied, “No, I’m pretty sure you can’t.”

He spoke the truth. And I realize that it’s time to face my demon head-on, finally. A few days later, I bring my bike to the Colorado Cyclist bike shop, in my hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and put my incompetence into the very competent hands of Phil, Scott and Ryan. All are dressed in the requisite bike-shop-dude outfit: dark jeans, black T-shirts, hipster sneaks. “I suck at changing flats,” I blurt, “and I don’t ride my bike because of it.” I feel raw admitting it, but I imagine it’s not unlike standing up at your first AA meeting and introducing yourself. After you own your flaws in front of strangers, the healing can begin.

Phil hoists my bike up on a workstand and begins changing my back tire. He removes it–no grease on his hands at all–and walks through the process as if he’s doing something as second nature as brushing his teeth. In between snippets of instruction, he tosses around insider bike terms such as snakebites, beads and lawyer tabs. At first I nod reflexively, trying to show him that I know what he’s talking about. But then I catch myself, remembering where ignorance has gotten me over the years. I suck it up. “What is that?” I ask. “Can you explain in layman’s terms?”

He complies, and slowly what seemed like a foreign language begins to make sense: A snakebite, also known as a pinch flat, is the kind of flat you get when your tire is underinflated and you hit something hard, like a rock or pothole, that pinches the tube against the rim, often causing two parallel holes, like a snakebite. (The opposite is a puncture flat, when you run over something sharp.) Beads are the edges of the tire that fit into the rim; most are made of flexible Kevlar, although older and cheaper tires have finger-ripping wire beads. Lawyer tabs are tiny notches on the fork that prevent the wheel from coming off even if you don’t install it correctly; the name stems from the fact that they supposedly minimize bike–related lawsuits. I take comfort in learning that so many people don’t know how to mount a front wheel that an idiot-proof device was created to save them from themselves.

As Phil demonstrates, his hands work as capably and nimbly as a cardiovascular surgeon’s. He knows instinctively at what angle to rest the wheel on his quad to make it easy to get the tire off; he can stuff the tube, which he’s blown up a bit with his mouth, back into the tire seamlessly; he can reattach the back wheel, it seems, with his eyes shut–all in a couple of minutes.

When it’s my turn to try, I have to think way too hard even about what direction to push the pedal with my hand as I shift to a small cog to make it easier to remove the wheel; understanding how things move in space is not my forte. My hands are already black with grease when I finally wrangle the wheel free. The tire comes off without the use of tire levers, because brute strength is one of my assets. But pressing the new tube into the tire, I feel like I’m at Chuck E. Cheese’s, playing Whack-A-Mole, the game where you hit one mole and another pops up somewhere else. I fit the tube snugly into the tire in one spot, only to have it spit out in another. I feel my face burn red but hope the guys don’t notice. One of them–I can’t bear to look up and see who it is–moves in for the assist, and eventually the tube lies flat in the tire. I squeeze the tire back onto the rim, Phil pumps it with the floor pump, and I’m just relieved it’s done so I can go back to watching, not doing.

But it’s not done. I still have to mount the wheel back onto the bike. Again, my spatial cluelessness kicks in, and I jam the wheel somewhere between the derailleur and the chain, hoping it’ll be the right place. It isn’t, and another assist gets me off the hook.

Because the tire came off without levers and because, apparently, I did well enough on that attempt–were they asleep?–Scott brings out a brand-new wheel with a brand-new tire, which means the tire is on so tight that it’s impossible to get it off without levers. So after a helpful demonstration from Phil, who has slowed the pace of his instruction and dumbed down his vocabulary considerably, I plunge a blue plastic tire lever between the rim and the tire, push the lever downward to lift the bead, and hook the end of the lever to a spoke. In less than a minute, I have the tire off. I’m unbelievably proud of the small feat and go on to change this pseudo-flat much more smoothly than the first time.

Therein lies the key: Competence is built only on knowledge and practice. It is boring and clich? yes, but the fact remains that I can’t will or force or fake my way into being more comfortable changing a flat. I just have to take what I learned today, and change and rechange flat tires, somewhere preferably other than the stress-charged side of a road. Only in the repetition, and putting as much energy into it as I’d give a workout, will I gain the confidence to take to the streets solo.

The next evening, I tee up four episodes of “Entourage” and, on my living-room floor, I prepare to flat at least eight times, two on the front wheel, six on the bitch–I mean back. I will force myself to take on the full monty each time, from taking the wheel off the bike to pumping the tube back up and reattaching the wheel. On the first change, I’m “Was that lesson a mirage?” clumsy, but by number five I’m finding a rhythm. My skills are far from pretty, but they’re also far from my initial incompetence.

After two rockin’ nights at home practicing and 16 fake flats fixed, I feel ready to head outside. I’m surprised by how light and untroubled I feel as I pump up my tires myself–a task Grant has done for me for at least six years–then stuff a tube and my cell phone into my jersey pockets. “I’ll fix one flat myself,” I tell Grant as I roll out from the garage, “And then I’m calling you.” But I don’t need Grant, nor do I need my newfound ability. I arrive home, both tires still plump, and realize I’m actually kind of bummed I didn’t get a flat tire.

Still, let’s be honest: I’ll never be what others would consider good at changing a tube. I’ll definitely never leave home without my cell phone. But I will leave home, pedaling as far and as fast as I want to, even if I reach a point where the bars on my phone have disappeared and I’m out of range of my mechanic.

Part of Trek’s super helpful step-by-step manual. Trust me: unless you’re a mechanical whiz, you want this in your bag.

 The good news? I’ll never be as stranded as I’ve been before. Trek has this great little, how-to-change-a-flat, illustrated guide which I’ve ripped out and put in my saddle bag with my tubes and CO2 cartridges. You can do the same; here’s the pdf of it.

Are you better at changing flats–or at least not worrying about them–than I am? How did you get there?