My first flat tire; I had everything but a tire lever and the experience to change it.

When I first met my husband, Tim, we got into mountain biking and while I loved it I was always a cautious biker for fear that I might pop a tire in the middle of the woods and my daredevil husband would be so far in front of me that I would be left alone helpless. I had all the necessary tools for changing a flat tire during our mountain biking days but I’m proud to say that during three seasons of the sport I never once got a flat. I watched Tim change countless tires and was always confident that if my day came I would be good to go.

Last year when I decided to try triathlons (also at the nudging of Tim and others) I transferred my saddlebag from the mountain bike to my Cannondale road bike and added the requisite spare tubes and patch kit. My bike routes involve all sorts of potentially hazardous areas for tires from roads with no shoulder to uneven roads to busy roads with big shoulders that are littered with everything imaginable. In my first season of riding, after every ride I felt lucky to come home without a flat tire. But luck cannot last forever. Continue reading →