This was during a nor'easter, with wind in gusts up to 50 mph. Also, I was getting over a cold and a wrenchy shoulder. The original plan had been to bike, despite the weather: 4 miles to work at CNY, 3.5 to FMRI class at MIT, 3.5 back to CNY, 3.5 to aikido at MIT, 3 home. Most of that didn't happen.

(Excerpt from an email)

BAH!!

So, okay, you were right about maybe this wasn't a day to leave the house...

I already had a late start getting out of the house for work, in fact I gave up on going in at all before FMRI class at MIT 2-3:30, and then I wasn't going to manage to stop at Harvest first, and then it was already two and I was just leaving.

So, a mile out (1.06mi, IN FACT) I got a flat. On the bright side, it was right by a (grouchy) service station. You know how you're not supposed to pull the pencil out of the kid's heart and stuff? Well, I guess if I'd left the glass in it might have held air enough to walk it to Bway or a bus to work.

Anyway, I borrowed a wrench, got the wheel off, and carried it halfway home, then locked up the bike and just carried the wheel. I came home (by now it's 2:50), patched the tire, snarfed a rear rack off one of the 3-speeds downstairs, bolted it on a beater - all these things, mind, took much longer than they should have, partly because I was inclined to treat myself to coffee and cookies and tortillas and other snacks - oh, and the rack bolt wingnut suddenly disappeared (??) so I looked for it for too long, then lashed the rack on with innertube (didn't feel like carrying panniers over-the-shoulder in this wind)...

Bike the beater and wheel down the hill, leave it (oh, hell, do I have another lock? there's a cable and a combo somewhere) and pick it up on the way home.

Anyway, I called work and they said they were already done moving furniture. Case closed.

The funny thing is, the last time there were 50mph gusts was the last time I had to do a big on-the-road repair (chain broke from a repair so force-it-type bad I was carrying extra links 'cause I saw it coming. It lasted six miles, and I fixed it right on the corner of uh, Rutherford and Chelsea or something with my eyes closed against the grit).

And the last time I had a flat and had to carry the bike any distance was the last time I had a thermos of coffee in my panniers - I remember, because that made it that much heavier - and was also on the way to an FMRI class (this conference thing in June).

And, yeah, my flats are rare and always nails, yeah, a couple a year, never glass. Today's was glass, did I mention?

Heh...

See you at class, maybe. Well, why not? Can't be worse.
 later,
  E