More lessons

This isn’t so much about biking as it is about me, I suppose. Why is it that whatever lessons I learn, I seem to have to learn them the hard way? Things that, in hindsight, make perfect sense, somehow only occur to me when I’ve come face to face with the cold hard consequence of not thinking of them.

Take, for example, a flat tire. In retrospect, it seems like it should be second nature to check the tire, while replacing the destroyed inner tube with a new one, for whatever object might have caused the flat in the first place. You know, cause it might, like, still be there.

And it might, you know, rip yet another hole in your brand new inner tube, but in such a way as to leak slowly while you're at work, until you discover the damage a couple of blocks after you leave the office. On a day when you need to be somewhere.

At least this way I get to test out whether the inner tube I bought is, in fact, “puncture-proof.” It’s supposed to be full of some kind of liquid that self-seals holes. I’ll find out tomorrow when I try to inflate the tire: I had to hop the bus again tonight, though, because I needed to be at the Mayfair for an event and didn’t have time to repair the flat and get there, especially if I couldn’t be certain the tire would hold.

And yeah, I feel pretty dumb right now.