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We were riding the tandem on a CRW Sunday ride, when all of a sudden I heard a loud bang! I had heard this sound often enough to realize that this was probably the sound of the tube exploding as it had poked its way through the tire. Not to be confused with the much gentler hissing that occurs when a small sharp object enters the tire, like a nail. In this case, you have ample time to realize that something is amiss as the tire grows softer and softer until rim and ground are separated only by a flaccid tire and tube. No, this is a resounding explosion and it’s pretty easy to identify. I figured we probably had hit some large pointy object that had ripped a gash in the sidewall of the tire, although I didn’t remember seeing anything that looked particularly nasty.
But when we got off to examine it, it appears that the tire had pretty much died of old age. There was serious amounts of cord showing where tire should have been, and the cause of our present problem was an area where even cord had disappeared, leaving a gaping hole for the tube to squish through. Needless to say, Mrs. D. was a bit miffed by what she viewed as an egregious lack of normal preventive maintenance. I said that I just hadn’t noticed the condition of the tire, being as I was preoccupied with taking care of the other tandem chores (like filling the water bottles) and that she, too, could have observed the rather shabby state of the tire. She replied that mechanical stuff was my job, and a sorry performance it was indeed. So after a suitable period of finger pointing and recrimination we turned to the task at hand, which was to attempt to fix the problem.
This involved two key elements, a tube and a pump, both of which, as it turned out were somewhat lacking. After rummaging around in our voluminous seat bag, I came upon a pump, one of those short little numbers that mostly serve to put enough air into the tire so that you can get to the nearest gas station. This one had a fatal flaw, in that there was a piece that was supposed to screw onto the top that had gone missing some time ago. This seemed to render the pump somewhat useless, and I was hard pressed to remind myself why I had put said pump in the bag. I had been loathe to throw it out, since I had a vain hope that one day I would find the missing piece, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t fit for service, and I had beaucoup other pumps that would have worked better. Another round of recrimination ensued.
We had started the ride towards the front, so there were any number of people behind us to come to our aid, and we were able to borrow a decent pump. Then there was the spare tube. It was not very cherry, as the Beach Boys say, and sported several patches. Nonetheless, I generally don’t consider a tube a fitting spare unless it has a sporting chance of actually holding air. This one seems to have slipped by my rigorous quality control, and didn’t seem to be holding air for more than about five seconds. Fortunately, the kind fellow with the pump also had a spare tube which he gave us after some futile attempts at inflating mine.
There remained the root of the problem, the gaping hole in the tire. Gabor came along to the rescue this time with a boot, finely crafted from the remains of a tire. There was enough missing tire that we had to augment this with a dollar bill. That got us going again, and we wisely decided to abort the mission and turn back to the short ride, the quickest way home. We got a few miles into it when the tire again went flat, probably due to the boot not being properly aligned.
So, once again we threw ourselves upon the kindness of strangers. This time we were pretty close to the end, so when a couple came by to ask if we were OK, Susan got the idea to give them the keys to our car and asked them to drive back and get us.
As it turned out, across the street from where we last came to rest was a sofa someone had put out in the trash, so Susan went and sat on it while we waited. After a bit, I suggested we start walking to keep warm, so Susan abandoned her chaise lounge and we soldiered on. It didn’t take long for me to get tired of walking in cleats, so I decided to ride the bike on the rim, Susan preferred to keep walking.
So while I’m riding the bike at walking speed with Susan walking beside a number of riders passing by asked if we were all right. We clearly weren’t, but help was on the way, and unless someone had a spare tire there was not much anyone could do. So, Susan would reply “Yes, I just felt like a walk,” or, “He’s been bad and we’re having a time out.” Finally, our benefactors came back with our van, and we were able to drive off into the sunset, but not before I had sworn a solemn oath to take better care of our tandem.
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