the tao of cycling: tire tubes and bike grease

Friday, February 25, 2011

tire tubes and bike grease

"do you change your own flat tires?"

my eyes stretch wide as I look at her in disbelief, "well, yes, I do." as opposed to letting my tire stay flat? yep. I change them.

"my husband always does mine, and I tell him he's infantalizing me, that I need to learn to do this."

"I'd like to be infantalized that way," I say with a half-grin.

I have been heard to say I want to marry a bike mechanic. now I haven't met one yet that I want to marry--or who wants to marry me--but I sure love having someone take care of those mechanical issues for me.

not that I need it. but I like it.

I can change tires, and I do change tires. I've even reached that way-cool point where I can put my rear wheel back on the bike after I've removed it to switch out a tube. yep, I've even figured out how to flip down the little rear derailleur do-hickey and get the chain back where it belongs. and the bike works after this complicated surgery, too.

this is a new skill: I couldn't do this for the life of me a year ago. but all the sudden a couple weeks ago I had to change my rear tire, and I did, and it all worked smoothly and beautifully. so yesterday when I had to change my rear tire again, I moved through the job with ease. I even found the hole in my tube, patched it, and successfully put things back together.

no infant here.

but that doesn't mean I don't want to be one sometimes.

as much pride as I take in the fact that I can care for my bike, there is just something magical about having it done for me. as independent and capable as I am, and as much as I like knowing how to and that I can do, there is still a part of me that absolutely loves to be taken care of. pampered. adored. put on a pedestal . . .

okay, that went too far.

I just like having my bike looked after. and I'd prefer not to have to scrub bike grease from my hands. I'd prefer not to have the frustration of being too weak to get tight new tires off rims. I'd prefer having someone else clean and scrub and care for all those little moving parts that could always use loving attention.

but who knows, if I had that, I might become like my friend who obviously has some desire to change her own tires.

because it often seems that--no matter how good we have it--we find a way to want what we don't have, don't we?

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.