Pump air into a flat? Uh, no...

I saw a guy on the side of the bike trail the other day. He had a flat tire on his mountain bike. He was in his late 40s or so, riding with a young mountain biker, who was also stopped, who looked to be in his 20s.

They needed a bicycle pump, they told me, when I stopped. The guy with the flat was in tennis shoes, shorts, didn’t have a spare tube or any equipment to change a flat. “It’s my daughter’s bike,” he said. He just stood there calmly, doing nothing, like he expected someone else to fix his flat because he couldn’t.

The mountain biker said he didn’t have a spare tube with him either, only a patch kit.

So the younger guy inspected the flat tire and found the crown of a thorn embedded in the rear tire of older guy’s bike. He picked it out.

Without sizing all this up, I took my small tire pump and started to pump air into the flat rear tire. The idea was to get enough air in it so this guy could ride to a nearby parking lot, and the younger guy would ride to his truck and pick him up there.

So, there at the side of the trial, somehow the logic escaped me that pumping air into a flat tire doesn’t do anything. I went ahead and pumped air into the tire and then, sure as shootin’, it all went out through the hole in the tube. Oh man, no kidding!

“I’ll just walk it to the parking lot,” the older guy said.

They both thanked me and left as I reattached my pump to my bike frame.

As I got back on my bike, I laughed at my poor diagnostic skills while trying to help this guy. I didn’t even question how using a pump was not the solution, just did it anyway!

Neither guy had a backup tube with them, which isn’t good, but oversights like that can happen. Especially if getting a flat never enters the mind as a possibility.

Hell, I’ve been in the same boat. I remember once having to use a patch kit when I flatted out in the middle of nowhere on my mountain bike. Didn’t have a spare tube. Suck town! I got the tube to hold air -- eventually.

But messing with a patch kit takes too long, at least when I do it. I could be in the dark hearing crickets before I’m done. After that I always brought two tubes on a mountain or road bike ride. But it still took me way too long to learn how to replace a road bike tube without puncturing it! I figure trial and error is probably the best teacher for learning how to fix flats in a reasonable amount of time. I got humbled plenty along the way, but the proper fundamentals finally sank in.

Ride when you can, but…

Working a ride in before or after going to work for half the day is great to do, but this past week my plan for an afternoon ride was derailed. By choice.

I worked from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., so when I got home there was still time for me to get out on my bike by 11 or 11:30. But there was an obstacle in the conditions. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t windy. It was triple-digit heat, with a smidgen of wind blowing in forest fire smoke from the Yosemite area.

So by the late morning hour, the heat was just starting to get into its full-on, nuclear torque, sizzle mode. Higher temps were predicted to move past 100 and push close to 109 as the day wore on. I looked out the window at a palm tree I always check to see if there’s any wind. Because, I told myself, if there’s a little wind, it will be cooler than if there’s no wind at all. And in that case, a ride could be do-able.

But I could see there was just an occasional small flutter in the palm fronds. Which meant, uh, pretty much stagnant, very hot smoky air – broiling muck -- would be in the cards all ride long, 51 miles with about 1,500 feet of climb. So I decided, even though I was due for a ride, it wasn’t worth it. Stay in, relax, enjoy the air conditioning. Take a nap.

I knew if I’d gone out, it would have been a sweaty suffer-fest. Especially if I happened to flat out or have some other mechanical in some remote area in rippling heat with no shade. Nope. Not worth it.

I waited a couple of days til my next day off when I could go out early enough to beat what also promised to be a scorching hot day. It was plenty cool enough on the way out, and got pretty toasty as the day heated up on the way back. But I drank a lot of water, took a couple of electrolyte gel caps, and got the ride in.

On the ride, the early-morning air held some overnight moisture and that put a drag on my speed. Plus, my legs were a little rusty. But even with tired legs on the way back, when the air had heated up and dried out a bit, I rode faster. Weird how those variables of moist air/dry air wind resistance vs. relative leg power affect speed in different ways.

Til next time, remember to strap on a helmet every time you get on the bike. Then ride safely, rubber side down. And don’t forget to have a blast.

-- Mark Eric Larson