Finally made it back to blogging after a brief illness…aka – cold.  I won’t call it the flu.  If it was, it wasn’t a full-blown knock out drag out.  Head cold and running nose was about the extent.  I’m sure I got it from my daughter who did have it for four days.  She teaches young children dance and most assuredly that’s where she picked it up.  So, I’m back.

The big news is…du…du…dunnnnaaa….I changed my bike tire.  All by myself.  Yep, I finally got around to doing it.  It only took me, hmmm about two hours.  How’s that for some speed.  So glad I didn’t have a wild animal lurking around.  I’m glad it happened, because there were some items that definitely did NOT work or was spent in my tool bag.

I began by watching a 4 minute “refresher” video from Trek (the brand I own).  There was this lovely female giving the demo.  As I’m watching I notice that she is holding the tire towards the camera (obviously) and just seemed to be zipping through everything with ease.  Of course I know she has probably done this many times but she was holding the tire with one hand and using the release tool with the other.  Easy peasy baby!.  I slapped my knee and went down to the garage.

Step 1.  Take the tire off the bike.  First release the brakes…ahhh…then the tire release, yes…oops the chain, hmm okay a little tricky but no worries (uh huh) and tire is off!!!

 Looking good.

Step 2.  Take the actual tire (you know the rubber part) off.  I used these little beauties:

Okay just wiggle…wiggle a little more… some more…dam**!! okay okay it’s off.  Great, just get this off.  Whew.

Step 3.  Remove the old tube and insert the new one.  On the video it said to blow the new tube up just a bit to make it easier to place.  She also used her carbon pod so I decided to try mine too.  Nope!  First one was dead as a door nail.  The guy at the bike store told me they lasted FOREVAHHH…I knew it was BS when he said it but still….  Okay let’s get the tire pump.  I slip the new tube in the rubber tire casing and place one side of the tire back on the rim.  This is very important…because that was the easy part.  The hard part was getting the other side of the tire on the rim before you can inflate the tube.  You didn’t think that was going to be easy did you?  If it was the tire wouldn’t stay on the rim like it should.  This process took an incredible amount of time.  Let’s see, video again…ah ha “if the wheel is to tight going back on…”  ok, ok hmmm.

Don’t even ask why I have the pliers out… I don’t even remember.  Finally, I got the tire on the rim.

Step 4.  Inflate said tire.  Easy peasy.  Nope!  Sunnuva… tire pump is not playing nice.  I don’t like this tire pump anyway.  It’s weird and too big.  For some reason I couldn’t get it seated on the valve properly.  After much finagling I get the tire inflated!

Step 5.  Put the tire back on the bike.  May I present the first piece of evidence:

It just seemed easier.  Okay this is the easy part ya’ll!!  Nope!  HOW THE HELL DID I GET THIS THING OFF!  VIDEO!  I actually took another bike and flipped it upside down so I could see the placement.  It’s interesting the way the chain was laying because visually I thought should have looked different.  Eventually, I figured it out and got everything put back together. Proof!!!  Yeah that plastic glove really helped.

Step 6.  Step back and say damn….I’m good.  And test that baby out before you go on a long ride.  I feel confident that I can change my tire out on the road.  Maybe a little slow, but I’ll get it done.  As they say, “now you know”.

I’m just going to say that all women need to know how to be hands on with their equipment.  Whether it be a bike or a car tire.  You need to know how to take care of things yourself.  Does it suck?  Yeah, sometimes it does, but you never know when you need to rely on your own two hands when help isn’t around.

Running was a little more than last mileage recap.  I even was able to get on the recumbent bike. I was able to log  19.87 miles this time around with 6286.27 miles gratefully remaining.  Thinking about changing my tire brought one song to mind.  If you do a crappy job changing your tire then you can’t keep on rollin’!  Happy Miles to You!!