Its all relative I suppose

Triathlon Forum
1

One man’s lousy is another man’s lofty goal.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected event to make you realize exactly where you stand in the line.

A neighbor who I’ve been dragging along with me once or so per week for my Sunday cool down ride was with me yesterday. He was on his new bike. He doesn’t know much about cycling yet but he’s having fun and he’s pretty strong for a new cyclist. He flatted. We pulled over and he says to me ( of course ), “I bet you’re a lot better at this than me! I’ve never changed a tire before.” I’m thinking “it figures”…argh.

So I started yanking his wheel off and pulled out my tire levers and in just a few surprising seconds I was asking for the spare tube - he was still wiping his brow. I surprised myself at how quickly I had pulled the tube out - hadn’t really needed to do it in a while. I put the spare in and pulled the tire over the rim in no time too, that was another surprise - experience has taught me I guess. I then look to him - and he’s holding his frame pump. Damn, I hate frame pumps. I tell him “you’re doing the pumping!” and then realize he has not bought spare tubes with long stem valves for his aero rims - its just barely poking out and the frame pump won’t go on it.

So I dig out my CO2 inflator and it works fine, it actually grabs the little nib of a valve stem, whooosh! And the tire is full, I put it back on and we’re off. Total time, less than 5 minutes for sure, not a record breaker, but it was nice for once to see that someone else had confidence in me and I didn’t let them down, and surprised myself in the process.

3

Good skills, but why didn’t you have him change his own flat, while you talked him through it?

4

Thats a good question. I suppose the answer is - I was hot, sweaty, and well warmed up, just wanted to get back on the bike. I told him we’d do flat drills at some point in the near future, just like my coach used to do with me.

My point might have been misunderstood, I probably didn’t make it well…it was just that sometimes you surprise yourself pleasantly. I always think its a pain the behind to fix a flat but I guess I’ve done it enough times now that its not a big deal after all.

5

Fair enough. And I know what you mean. Reminds me of two things, though: (1) Tom Demerly’s great “That Guy” essay , and (b) Terry Pratchett, in Jingo, “Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”