So, You're Not Going to Help Me

So,You’re Not Going to Help Me?

Michelle was waiting for us. This was the rain check for my birthday ride. Her bike was ready, and she was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of her Subaru, putting on her bike shoes. I was unloading the bikes from our truck.
“Uh Oh,” I said to Pinky. “You have a flat. It’s the back tire again.”
“Oh, no. Not again,” Pinky groaned to me.
“It’s a pain. But it would be a good time for us to do the tire changing lesson,” I said.
“Yeah,” Pinky acknowledged. “But I don’t want to do it now.”
“You said you wanted to do it.”
“You mean right now. I have to change my tire while you stand and watch?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Alright, but it’s going to take a long time.” Her voice was rising. “We don’t have time.” She looked at my expectant sweet face, and that did it. She threw her gloves down on the tailgate of the truck and said. “So, You’re not going to help me?” She looked at me again, obviously angry. “Michelle has to get back.” We were face to face. “Well, why don’t you just go by yourself and…”
“It’s okay. We have time.” It was Michelle. Pinky, feeling betrayed, looked at her in disbelief.
“Really, I don’t have to be back. We have time,” she said with sweet reassurance. “It’s a good time.”
Pinky melted. “Rats,” she said, and they started laughing. I put the back wheel of Pinky’s bike between my knees, released the skewer, and pushed the wheel down so the chain on the lower part of the sprocket was the only thing holding the wheel. I twisted and pulled the wheel away from the frame and the chain.
Michelle looked at me and said, “Pinky was supposed to do that.”
“Now you are in trouble with Michelle,” Pinky said smugly.
“You’re not even supposed to be here for this lesson. Except it’s your birthday ride, and we’re helping you write your book,” Michelle added. Then to Pinky she said, “Just lay the bike down on its side with the rear derailleur on the up side.”
It was between them now. They ignored me. Our “Bicycling Chaperone” went to work. It’s magic. It should a paid position—a new service industry.
Recently, it has been my mission in life, for about a month, to get Pinky to change a bike tire…to have the famous “tire change lesson” that Michelle provides her girl friends. Why did I want this? Maybe it is the same reason that she would like to see me take a “housework lesson”. But there is real reason to have this skill. There have been times on bike trips where it would have been really helpful to both of us if Pinky could have changed a tire. It is a basic skill that riders should have to take care of themselves. It is like knowing how to put your skis back on if the bindings release. It is like knowing how to swim if you sail a boat.
Pinky was holding the wheel rim between her thumbs and working her way around inspecting every millimeter of the tire. “I found it,” she said. “Duff missed this second hole yesterday when he fixed the flat the first time.”
“Is there something still in the tire?” Michelle asked as Pinky squeezed a tiny glass fragment out of the tire.
Michelle handed Pinky a tire iron.
“This is the part I hate. My hands aren’t strong enough.” Pinky took the plastic “tire iron” and pushed it under the bead of the tire. When she tried to pry it up to the edge of the rim it slipped off the iron with a “pop”. She repeated this at four or five places along the rim. Had we been alone, she would have thrown it all on the ground. But I was no longer present in their minds.
“You may want to put on your gloves,” said Michelle.
Pinky held up a bike gloved hand, and Michelle said, “Those winter gloves with the long fingers. It’s for your nails.”
“Oh, yeah. Plus, I don’t want this black grease in my cuticles. I just got my gift certificate manicure. It was from the Vietnamese place in Mount Vernon. Have you been there?”
“No, but I’ve heard that they are good.”
“I don’t want to mess up my sparkles,” said Pinky putting on the gloves.
“You should have done your toenails instead of your fingernails.”
They laughed.
“Work the tip of the iron under the bead real good. Don’t worry too much about pinching a hole in the tube, because we will be replacing the tube. You can learn patching tubes later.”
Pinky got a good purchase and the bead came up onto the rim and she held it there, but couldn’t push the iron further along the rim to get more of the tire’s bead out over the edge of the rim
“That little notch in at the end of the “L” can hook onto a spoke and hold the iron while you pry up another place with another iron. It is even harder to get the second iron under the bead just past where its edge is over the rim, but force it in there.”
It took a while, but finally Pinky got a purchase and up it came. The tire irons came off of the spokes. The bead was over but she could still not push hard enough on the tire iron in her hand to strip the bead off around the circumference of the rim.
“If you can’t strip it, just pry it out again a little father along.”
Finally Pinky was able to strip it. “Do I take the tube out now?” she asked.
“Some people do but I take the tire all the way off and look at it. Just put the iron in under the tube and under the second bead. Pry it out and strip it the same way.”
It took several tries, but Pinky got it.
“Now take that nut off of the stem – the cap too. Take the tire from the rim and pull the tube out.” She paused and looked at the inside of the tire, and felt it with her fingers. “I don’t feel any more glass.”
“Don’t you have to keep the tire matched up with the tube just as it came out?”
“That can help you to find the hole in the tire – so you can be sure that the glass or nail is gone if you haven’t found it. But you already found it, and I can’t find anything else in the tire.”
Pinky had the tube out and was starting to put it into the tire.
“You need a little air in the tube now. Loosen that screw on the valve and push that center needle down. That opens the valve. You can use the pump. I just blow on it with my mouth.”
Pinky put her mouth to the valve and blew. Then she put the stem through its hole in the rim.
“Now, I usually put one side of the tire back on the wheel, and stuff the tube in. That keeps the tube in the tire while you working with it.”
Michelle continued, “Start at that valve-stem when you put the bead over the rim. Work your way down, one hand on each side. When it’s tight and won’t go anymore, use an iron to pry that last bit over the edge onto the rim.”
The prying took a few attempts.
“Now start at the stem and put the other bead on the same way. Push the stem up into the tire a little so the bead edge can get around the tube…down inside the trough.”
Slowly Pinky worked the bead over the rim almost all the way around. “I can’t do any more.”
“Sure you can. Use both hands, use your thumbs and push hard. Do a tiny bit at a time. That’s the secret.”
Pinky got a little more done, and reached for a tire iron.
“You can do that, but only if you have to. You don’t want to ding the tube now.”
Pinky tried some more, but couldn’t. She was shaking her head.
“It’s okay. Go ahead and use the iron. Put it in the middle of the overhang there.”
Pinky pried it over the edge with a “pop”. She moved the tire around between her thumbs. “Is this a problem?” She had found a spot where she could see the tube under the bead edge of the tire down in the rim.
I couldn’t keep quiet. “If you pump it now the tube will push out a knuckle of tire and make a bump on the tire. That’s what happened to me yesterday. That bump can hit the break shoe and slow you down, or the tube can blow out.” Nobody paid any attention. After all, I was no longer present.
“Very good,” said Michelle, impressed. “Hold the tire like this.” She was pinching the sidewalls of the tire between her thumb and fingers, with both hands. “Kind of rock it back and forth as you move all the way around the wheel. That gets the tube up into the tire.” She let Pinky take over and finish. “Give the stem a little push up into the tire again.”
“Now we pump?” Pinky asked. I got the floor pump.
“Unscrew the little knob on the Presta valve. Push it in to open the valve. Use that smaller hole on the little nozzle on the pump hose”
Pinky tried twice but the pump fitting turned sideways and didn’t seal onto the stem.
“You have to push it all the way on there – until the fitting gets down to the wider part of the stem, then pull the lever to tighten it.” She waited. “There. That’s it.”
Pinky began to pump. “How much?” she asked.
Michelle looked at me.
“A hundred and twenty.”
“That’s a lot,” Pinky said.
“I use about a hundred and ten but one twenty is okay too.”
Pinky pumped and pumped. “Finally,” she said. “How do you know when you don’t have this floor pump with a gauge?”
“By feel. Pinch the tire side to side, here at the sidewalls.”
“Feel that?”
Pinky nods.
“Try and remember. Pinch every time you pump, and you’ll be able to guess the pressure pretty well.”
Pinky had picked up the bike and was sliding the frame over the tire.
“The easiest way is to turn the bike upside down and set it on the handlebars and seat.”
Pinky did that. She was putting the tire in. She had the sprocket on the wrong side and it wouldn’t go.
“The key to remember is that you put the cassette or sprocket of the wheel in between the upper and lower parts of the chain. Forget about all the turns the chain takes around the derailleur gears. Pull that upper chain up over the sprocket as you slide the wheel into place. The axle will hit the derailleur. Grab the big part of the derailleur near the wheel slot and pull it backwards with your right hand while you slide the wheel down into the wheel slots in the frame.
“It is still not going. It is hitting the brake pads.”
“Yep. We forgot to flip the brake release lever.” Michelle reached down to the lever on the arm of the back brake and released it. The wheel slid into the slots.
“Now push down on both sides of the axle to seat it all the way in then adjust the nut on the skewer until the lever on the other side works to tighten the axle in place.”
Pinky did that, loosened it again, pushed the axle down again, then pulled the lever to tighten.
“Now, spin the wheel and make sure that it spins between the brake pads without hitting.”
“It looks good.”
“It is.”
I picked the bike up and turned it over. Pinky flipped the brake release lever on the rear brake so she would have brakes.
“Very good!” I said.
“I did it,” she said with the deepest satisfaction. I was proud of her. She liked being able to take care of herself. Michelle was in front of me. She started laughing. I turned around to look at Pinky.
She had her gloves off and was holding both hands up, wrists cocked back, with the most admiring gaze. She was examining her fingernails.
“I did it without a scratch or chip, and the glitter is all still there.”