How Much Are the Doggies....?

Just so that you don't think my bike commute is ALWAYS difficult (referencing my last entry about all the flat tire issues I had), I wanted to put a "fun" entry to make up for it a little. :)

Last winter (around Christmastime) when I was biking to work, and I had seen this lady walking her 5 Yorkies. At first I thought she was a dogwalker. No one would have FIVE dogs, would they? (even though they ARE small!). But when I asked her if they were her dogs, she replied "Yes!". The Yorkies on that day were dressed cute Santa jackets! :) I should have gotten a picture of her then! I didn't see her again until today. This time I definitely wanted to get her picture with her dogs. I told her I remembered talking to her last winter, and I asked if I could get a picture of her and her dogs. So she managed to get all of her 5 Yorkies to stop for a minute while I tried to capture them all in my camera phone screen. (I had to back up a bit to do that!). Afterwards I bent down and gave each of them some love - - they were SO cute! Definitely a 10 on the Cute Factor scale!! :) It made a beautiful morning even better! :)

Waves of Flats...

Last Friday night, the DC area was under a severe weather alert, and there were tornado watches issued. I checked the weather before I headed out, and when I got out of the garage with my bike, it was lightly raining, so I decided to go for it.

I got about halfway home, about to pass Catholic University, when I noticed my front tire was a bit soft. I got off to check it, and sure enough, it was a flat. I looked up ahead to some administrative buildings, and saw a covered stairwell that I could take care of it and be out of the rain and any lightning danger, as there were big trees around. To do a quick change, I just put in an inner tube that had been patched previously and ready to go. While I was wrapping things up, the rain came down, so I was glad to miss getting poured on.

I got within a couple miles of my house, and it REALLY started to pour, so I decided to wait it out a little while under a church awning (the building used to be an old theatre, so the "awning" was a marquee). As I waited, I looked at my tire to see how it was holding up. It wasn't - it was going down. :/ Here we go again. I pulled the inner tube out and patched the new hole and when I finished, the rain had diminished (nice little rhyme there! ha!). So I finally got home about a half hour past the normal arrival time.

On Monday, I took off for work, and as I got close to the office, I noticed my tire was going down. I hadn't checked the tire before I left home, and usually, I do check it and add air. So I parked my bike, added some air, and came back in a few hours to check to see if it held. No, it didn't. :/ So I patched the inner tube and put it back in, hoping that would be the end. It did fine in running an errand and getting me home.

This morning, it was flat yet again!! This time, I put a new inner tube in and gave up on the old one. I figured that if the new inner tube had problems, I would probably need a new tire. (The tires are about a year and a half old. I had checked the inside of the tire to see if there were any sharp points and also the rim, just in case you're wondering!). I got a half a block from work and noticed my tire going down again!!

OKAY!! So at lunch, I walked over to a nearby bike shop and bought a new Continental tire and a new inner tube, confident that this would solve it. After I had put air in the tire, I was putting the cap on the valve, but it wasn't going on very well. I realized it was the cap for the old inner tube (even though you'd think it wouldn't make any difference?), so I unscrewed it to put the correct cap on, and when doing that, the valve head came exploding OFF!! There goes a $7 new inner tube! :/ Sigh. So I grabbed the old one, and patched it, and put it in. I will go downstairs in a couple hours to see if everything is alright. I have to meet a friend for her birthday dinner tonight, and I don't have time to be dealing with this problem tonight.

So, in taking a poll of my readers...how do you think this saga will end? :)