Igot a flat tire recently. Maybe it's because I've started commuting again through Cambridge, the broken glass capital of the world. I've dubbed Cambridge the Emerald City, for the reflection of the morning sun on broken beer bottles on my way to work.
So I took out my trusty pump, one of these modern marvels that is about 3 inches long. Great idea, doesn't weigh very much and fits nicely in my duffel bag. The only problem arises when you actually use it to inject air into a tire. Most hand pumps start out with minimal resistance which increases as the pressure increases until you decide you've had enough. This one requires Herculean effort from the first stroke. Consequently, my strategy is usually to pump the tire up minimally until I can get to a gas station. I was aware of a recent disturbing development in the gas station air biz, namely charging money for air. This strikes me as distinctly un-American, depriving us of our inalienable right to life, liberty and free air. Still, outside of sticking up a filling station ("Hands up and give me all the air you've got") there is no choice but to pay. The last time I looked they were charging a quarter, and so I steeled myself to spring for the quarter as I rolled into the next filling station. To my horror, the air machine wanted FIFTY CENTS. I decided you had to draw the line somewhere, so I turned around and limped to work on the 30 or so pounds of air pressure that my mini-pump supplied. Rolling into work I realized I had just postponed the inevitable. I still had to find air somewhere. Then I remembered that Susan and I work at the same place, and our car, the D-Mobile was at hand. So I rooted around in the back and found a marginally better pump to get a little more pressure for the ride home.
Then I started thinking about turning the family van (commonly known as the D-mobile) into a rolling repair shop. Might was well throw in a Silca floor pump, a tool box, spare wheel, and assorted odds and ends (I drew the line at my air compressor, mostly because you can't get 220 V out of a cigarette lighter).
But not too long after this, the bike became the support vehicle for the support vehicle. The bicycle has yet another use -- it comes in very handy as a car dinghy.
There have been three times I've run out of gas (not counting college, when the favorite pastime of most of my friends was to borrow another friend's car and return it with as little gas as possible). All three times I had my trusty bike dinghy.
First was with the BMW. Yes, I admit I owned a BMW, but it was a 1968 2002, which was at the time in the vanguard of performance machines and had nothing to do with luxury. But I digress. Said BMW gulped its last drop of gas and I had to use my trusty bike to come to its aid.
The second time was when we had borrowed my pal Rick's pickup truck for a weekend somewhere. We were coming back on 93 and Susan had been complaining for some time about that fact that the gas gauge was looking perilously low. "Not to worry" I assured her, since my vast experience with automobiles had convinced me the "E" mark was merely a decoration and you didn't have to be really concerned until you could barely see the needle peering out behind the dashboard. Well, apparently the Japanese do not share the same sort of conservatism as Detroit. When they say "E" they mean "E". So we ground to a halt over by the Fells on 93. Fortunately, I had my trusty bike, and knew of several gas stations close by (we were less than a mile from home at the time). The trick in this instance was convincing the gas station attendant to let me borrow a gas can. But he did, and I cycled back to fill up the tank and all was well again.
The last time was several weeks ago. This time I remarked that the gauge was looking a bit low, which Susan pooh-poohed. As we were cresting the hill on route 2, all the gas sloshed to the far end of the tank, and the D-Mobile started to lose revs rapidly. Susan deftly manoeuvred us from the extreme left lane to the breakdown lane, before it coughed its last. Again, we had the bike dinghy. We were also quite close to our friend Stewart's house. Stewart had a gas can, but no gas, so I rode back to the car to reassure Susan, and then rode off in search of gas. When I found an open station, the attendant did not even bat an eye when I cruised in on my bike and asked for a fillup. Guess this sort of thing happens all the time in Arlington. He didn't offer to clean my glasses, though.
Add to my list of experiences I would not like to repeat was riding down the route 2 breakdown lane in the dark with no lights and a 2 1/2 gallon tank full of gasoline strapped to my rack. I felt like a human Molotov cocktail. But the gas and I arrived intact, and all was well again.
So I perceive a sort of symbiotic relationship here between car and bike, at least when both are equally shaky mechanically.
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