Bike Week ABC FAIL

When I GET AROUND TO IT, I'll Know if THIS is the Cause of a Slow Leak. UV Radiation is Hard on Bike Tires

Steve A, serial offender against the "ABC Quick Check." It isn't that I don't make the check, but the intention of doing so isn't meant to help an ABC scofflaw assess how much longer he can go on anymore than checking the oil on a car is intended to assess how many more miles can be driven before the motor freezes up. I'm bad, I admit it. You can see past episodes here. Among other posts.

This one is different. You see, this is Bike Week and it gives my normally boring commute a little extra spice. On Monday, somehow my front tire got damaged. I noticed it on the way home, but tire pressure was reasonable. On Tuesday morning, my front tire was way too soft. Contemplating things, just as motorists sometimes deliberately drive faster than the posted speed limit. I decided to just pump the thing up and ride the seven miles to work. I figured I'd carry the tire in and fix it during lunch. Little did I know what a conversation starter my front tire would become. Before you knew it, someone had placed a band aid on the tire (obviously someone with a poor eye for tire damage and a sense of humor as odd as mine). Well, at lunch, the tire was still pretty firm and I wound up riding home again on the untouched damage.

Since we met with our financial adviser Tuesday night, I put off fixing the thing until Wednesday morning. With diligent ABC technique, I'm STILL riding the bike, having determined that the tire loses about 100psi over 24 hours. Being the engineer I am, I quickly figured that if I ran it up to 120 in the morning, it'd still have 80 for the trip home without even a single stroke of the mini pump. 80 is not bad for the front tire on Buddy, particularly since my riding is biased towards smooth pavement.

All this on a bike that has a brand new replacement tire laid out for it and THREE spare tubes. But this is Bike to Work week. I'm going to the event in Fort Worth. I'd go to Richardson but FW is a straight shot and I can get to work only 1.5 hours later than usual if I skip the speeches. Maybe another year when going to work at the same time as non-government people is optional.

I think that this year I will manage to avoid losing my camera AND I'll have the secret pleasure of knowing I'm the only one there who knows how quickly his front tire is going flat. Unless, of course, the slow leak suddenly turns into a quick one. If that happens, y'all may hear how hard bike commuting really can be. But I think I'm gonna try to ride that leaker through to the weekend. If I patch the slow leak, I'll STILL have three spares which will let me keep two of them for my knobbies if we get snow and ice next winter.

Golly, I sure hope Gail, Richard, Chandra, or Warren don't read this!