The Walk of Shame

If you ride your bike enough, it is bound to happen. But that doesn’t make it any more palatable.

What is this mystery affliction?

The unfixable flat.

It isn’t that you are unprepared.

You perhaps spent $8 for a fancy slime-filled inner-tube that is supposed to be “self-sealing.” It, however, failed after a mere 20 miles. [It doesn’t seem like “merely” 20 miles when faced with the prospect of walking that distance to return home . . .]

So you pull out your spare tube - which you in fact checked before leaving the house, just to be certain you were being responsible and prepared for a flat tire – an unlikely event due to your investment in the slime tube, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

You remove your rear wheel (it is always the rear wheel; always), pull out the tube which is oozing lime green slime, and deftly replace it with your spare. You confidently take your CO2 cartridge in hand and . . . realize that the stem on your spare tube is too short. The chuck for the CO2 cartridge can’t grip the stem.

You are screwed.

If you are very lucky, you are riding with a buddy who has a spare tube with a stem that is at least 2 inches long.

If you are not quite so lucky, your buddy has a tube with a stubby little stem that is no damn good to you.

So you give him $20 and a pat on the butt and send him in search of a bike shop.

While you begin the walk of shame.

In your cycling cleats.

Pushing your bike.

Looking like a spandex-covered penguin and feeling forlorn.

If you are very very lucky, after you have walked only 1 mile, a very nice cyclist on a very fancy carbon fiber bike stops to help you. He gives you his spare tube – which has a 2-inch stem. He gives you his CO2 cartridge (because you wasted yours trying in vain to make it work on your short-stemmed tube, even though it was patently obvious that there was no way it could possibly work).

You ride off to meet your buddy who is returning from a bike shop with new tubes in hand.

Then you turn around and ride home because this whole mess wasted about 90 minutes, and the days are short and the evenings are cold. But you still got in a 3-hour, 40 mile bike ride.

Once home, you immediately check all your inner-tubes, get rid of the ones with stubby stems, and pack up your seat bag for the next ride with 2 long-stemmed tubes & extra CO2 cartridges.

Because no one wants to do the walk of shame.