Rode to work today. Yes, on my bike. That I fixed. By myself. I rode gingerly. Afraid to go over bumps, afraid to change gears.

This morning I finally had that thank you meal with R – you know, the guy who was right about my keys returning once we cut off the lock, …OK, he cut off the lock, I watched. I’m glad I was clever enough to arrange it so that I could reward myself for his efforts by getting to spend even more time with him and call it “buying him breakfast”.

I wasn’t going to bring up the bike, because he’s a bit of a compulsive helper, but he said: “So, how’s it going?”  What am I gonna do, lie?  So, I spilled and I learned that I can use the wrong valve, it’s a matter of sticking a smaller object through a larger hole. The opposite would have been a problem. That’s good news!

Quickly resuming bike-unrelated topics we enjoyed our breakfast and an awesome chat. Then I rushed home to try to finish my project and get the bike out of my living room!

Reassembly started off promising. I followed the YouTube instructions for getting the tire on the wheel and the inner tube inside. It was pretty easy. Later, temples sweaty from pumping air past the valve for a good 5 minutes before I realized what I was doing, I noticed that just by chance I’d put the tire on the correct way!  Yes, there is a backward and a forwards way to put on a tire! Encouraged by my good fortune I barreled on and wondered:  How far down should I push the axle in the slots?  Is it even?  How far can I adjust the fender to give the  bulky dirt bike tire enough room?  Did I tighten the nuts enough? How many times can I wash this grease off my hands before I scrub the skin right through?

Finally I was sure there was no chafing and the wheel was spinning with a minimum of wobble. Any good teacher would have said:  “Great!  Now take it off and do it again.”  Luckily, I didn’t need a teacher, my chain told me!  It was all bunched up on one side of the nut. I couldn’t be lucky twice.

I looked up the derailleur configuration online. Undid the tire, slung the chain in the right spot and remounted the tire. But then the chain fell off and got stuck in the tiny gap between the front gear and the body, and I wondered how it even got in there?  That’s when I nearly cried.  So close now!  What if I break the chain?  But I kept fiddling with it and just as mysteriously it slipped back out. And I didn’t break the chain. And with my fingers covered up to my palms in black grime I realized, I fixed my own flat today!

I wanted a decent tread, but all they had was mountain bike tires, so it vibrates a little on the street. But otherwise, I felt pretty pleased with myself when I actually arrived at work and nothing had fallen off. On my lunch hour I went to see if the tire was still inflated. Yup. It feels good to know how to do it, and it was an important experience for reaching a deeper understanding, but I don’t like it. It’s messy. And finicky. And it’s confusing!  The sizes!  What’s 700 even mean?  700 whats?  And what about this strange hybrid of metric and imperial measurement?  1.9?  Well, it’s bigger than 2 centimetres!  So, since when do we break down inches into decimals?

Next time I have a flat, the fair-weather cyclists will all have had their fair-weather tune-ups done, and I’ll just drop into my shop and whine:  “Feex eeeeet, pleeeeze!

I have the money, why should I torture myself?