When Bicycling Turns into a Gamble

If you watch television commercials, you might get the idea that riding a bike is easy, even fun. Like most people, I started riding a bike when I was about six. This has given me over four decades of bike-riding experience, which causes me to wonder why a biking excursion with my husband turns out looking less like a scene from the Tour de France and more like one from Earnest Learns to Bike.

My husband, having pursued his own sport of choice, golf, has never had much experience becoming acquainted with the finer points of bicycling, like, for instance, putting air in the tires.

Unlike my husband who simply stores his bike in the basement for the winter then throws it in the car in June and then seems shocked that there is no air in the tires when we reach our remote biking trail in the forests of Minnesota, I have a legitimate excuse for under my own under-inflated tires - a healthy phobia of coin-operated air pumps. Over the years I have mostly charmed air into my tires by riding up to the service station on my rims shortly after getting my oil changed there, then quickly returning before they forget my face and sweetly begging the attendant to pump up my tires. Sometimes I even drive over with a cake. I have found that I will do just about anything to avoid suffering the humiliation of completely deflating both my tires with the air pump and paying several quarters to do it. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I am obviously air pump challenged.

So, naturally when my husband and I got to the Paul Bunyan Trail in Minnesota recently, our tires were as flabby as a Sumo Wrestler's waistline. But, never fear, my husband said, as he pulled out an emergency air pump from the back of the car and plugged it into the adapter. I removed the cap from the tire stem and firmly pressed down on the nozzle. Instantly what little air was in my tires was gone in one swift phsssssst!

"I think this pump is for car tires," I deduced, and convinced my husband to drive back to a service station nearby. At the rear of the station stood the object of my disdain - a coin-operated air pump. I decided that instead of trying to use the air pressure gauge, I would simply hold the hose onto the tire until it felt firm. Attempts at using the gauge in the past had resulted in simply letting out what few air molecules I had managed to pump in. As my husband held the tires, I quickly squirted some air into each one with short bursts, keeping my head back as far as I could just incase the tire exploded. Yes, as I'm sure you've seen on the nightly news and read in the daily newspapers, bicycle tires are exploding and blowing people's heads off almost everyday from overfilling. We gave each tire a good squeeze and decided that there was enough bounce to get us by.

As we screwed the covers back on each tire stem we noticed one cap was missing,

"I must have left it on the ground back at the park," I said.

We drove the bikes back to the park and looked on the ground, found the cap laying on the ground and placed it back on the tire. We then decided that my husband would be the one to wear the only helmet we had between us. Because my husband bikes only a couple of times a year I had been borrowing his helmet after throwing out my old one. I had planned on buying a new one when we got to town but we had gotten in too late. But taking into consideration that my husband had fallen over backwards not while riding but while attempting to park his bike in a parking lot in Vancouver earlier in the year, deciding who was going to wear the helmet was a no-brainer - no pun intended.

After stuffing a bottle of water into my fanny pack (even any novice biker at this point would wonder aloud "Why don't they have water bottle holders on their bikes?" - and that would be a legitimate question) we were finally pedaling along the 100- mile long Paul Bunyan trail. From behind, I noticed my husband's bicycle seat had a large gash in the side and the inner yellow foam was bulging out. I was going to ask him how it had happened but I was distracted by the sound of my chain clanking against my chain guard every time I shifted below fifth gear. Just as I was about to slow down to take a look my fanny pack flew off of my waist, entangling itself in my front tire spokes, causing me to skid ungracefully to a halt. Our water bottle smashed to the ground. As I laid the bike down to retrieve my fanny pack and its strewn contents, the handle bar slipped from my grasp and the bike landed on my right foot.

After a while my husband realized I was missing and doubled back.

"I think my front brake is rubbing on my tire," he said as he rode up.

Yes, like the commercials say, biking can be fun. But, as we discovered, it can be even more fun if there's a casino nearby and you throw the darn bikes in the car and drive to it.