Boy, I was excited to get out for a rare weekday afternoon ride! I hadn’t been on the bike in several days, and my body was craving for some fresh air and exercise.
I grabbed the bike and guided it between the garage wall and my car, out to the driveway where I was going to top off the tires with air. But something didn’t quite feel right.
I looked down at the rear tire. It was flat.
That was really odd, because the last time I had been out for a ride, everything was fine. I had no inkling that the tire had been punctured, or even that it was lower at the end of the ride than it was at the start. But there it was.
I took the wheel off the bike, and took it and my flat-fixing gear into the kitchen.
Finding the leak was a problem. I finally had to submerge the tube in the kitchen sink to discover the telltale trail of bubbles that indicated a tiny hole in the tube.
I patched the tube and got it back on the bike. My afternoon ride had to be cut short — to around only 12 miles. Better than nothing, I suppose.
But if it hadn’t been for the “garage flat,” I could have gotten in something closer to a full hour.
I’m pretty sure the garage didn’t cause the flat. Something punched the tiny hole in the tube out there — on the road. But it was in the chilly air in the garage that the tire deflated, so the garage gets the blame.
I’m hoping that now that spring is just about here, garage flats will disappear until the cold weather returns.
I think garage flats are the best kind of flats. You can take the wheel off at your leisure, bring it in the house with the beverage of your choice, put on some music and calmy go about your business. This is MUCH preferably to attempting a repair on the side of a highway in 90 degree heat!