the everyday adventures of sabrina » bicycle

a tale of two innertubes

sabrina — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:37:59 +0000

I have a bike! It is a wonderful bike that I like to ride! :)
But it is winter, and cold, and snowy, and icy. And I like to not fall into snowdrifts or get hit by cars and die, so I don’t ride my bike outside in winter. :(
But I found a nice fluid trainer on ridiculous sale and bought it for less than I could even have gotten a cheap mag trainer for, so I could ride my bike inside in the winter and get bike time in on my own bike instead of a crappy exercise bike! :D
But then I realized my rear tire was low, and because I knew underinflated tires heat up and get damaged, and I didn’t want to damage my shiny new tires, I decided that the right thing to do was to air up my tires. :)
So I hooked up my floor pump to my front tire and aired it all the way up to 115 psi just like it said on the tire sidewall! :D
And then I hooked up my floor pump to the rear tire and got partway through and checked it with the pressure gauge and it was only at 50 psi so I hooked the pump back up and kept going and going and going and then I thought surely I would be over a hundred psi by now and went to use the pressure gauge again except the floor pump would not let go! :o
And I tried and I tried and I tried but it would not let go of my poor tire valve! :(
And I tugged and I pulled and I joggled and I twisted and I wedged my fingers in and pushed but it would not let go! D:
And finally I pushed really really hard and it let go a little bit and then it came off all the way but it was accompanied by the hiss of escaping air. :(
And I realized that it had damaged the part where the valve is connected to the tube. :(
And then my poor tire went completely flat and I couldn’t ride it, on my trainer or anywhere. :<
But then I walked to the store and bought new inner tubes so I could replace that one and have a spare! :)
But then I got halfway home and realized I forgot to buy new tire levers to replace the old ones I couldn’t find. And I got home and stared at my new inner tube and my flat tire and sulked. :X
But then I got new tire levers and they are zomg the best ever tire levers and I got the tire off with no effort, removed the leaky old tube, replaced it with a nice non-leaky new tube, got the tire right back on with no effort and felt very smart! :D
Then I realized I had to inflate the tube to 115 psi with nothing but a little road pump. :/
But I got it reinflated enough to put back on the bike, and felt very, very badass! BD
And then I managed to figure out how to get the chain back on the cassette and get the wheel back on and back on the trainer and I rode my bike for a few minutes and it was a total success, yay! :D

(No, I don’t know what happened in this blog post. I started out writing short, choppy, silly sentences and ending with smileys, and then things got kind of out of control, YAY! :D )

sigh

43things — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:03:05 +0000

Giving things up may be good for the soul, but Iâ€™m still sad to send my Santa Bike (so called because itâ€™s green with red reflective tape on the tubes) off to its new owner.

Nonetheless: itâ€™s done, its new owner was happy to get it, and I know itâ€™ll be better off with someone who can use it. Besides, I already have one bike and I donâ€™t need two.

Farewell, Santa Bike. Donâ€™t get stolen.

See more progress on: Minimize existing clutter and excess possessions

take this, you environmentalist bastards

sabrina — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 02:22:00 +0000

first of all, my apologies to everyone who’s been bugging me to go out and be social, or at least, for the love of god, to update my damned blog. sorry, sorry, sorry! have been very busy lately, and when have been not busy, have been either stressed and anxious due to quitting old job and starting new job, or sleepwalking due to insomnia. trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to have been around me anyways. my cats didn’t want to be around me.

but now, a very short update about the job. as mentioned previously, my cube faces a television which broadcasts CNBC all day. mostly this is “meh” at best, but today i happened to notice them airing a special groundbreaking news item: apparently a new study reveals that bicycling is actually worse for the environment than driving. the reason given is that because bicycling makes you healthy, and if you’re healthy you live longer, and if you live longer you generate more trash and use more energy and so on and so forth. since it’s a well-known fact i have nothing but disdain for treehugging filthy hippies and their filthy hippie self-powered transit, i went out and bought a shiny new bike after work. screw the environment! i’ma ride a bike! my shiny new bike is a charmer. she’s blue and white, has blue fenders and a silver chain guard, a built-in back deck and headlamp (!!!), and a kickstand. technically speaking she’s not really new… i’d say, oh, 1950s vintage, and she’s got a little rust so she’s not particularly shiny either, but she’s new to me and she’s shiny in my sight. and i get a kick out of riding her, which i did for three miles up western avenue and across division, then up ashland during rush hour (and lived to tell the tale, even without my helmet). so, screw you greenpeace hippies! i’m riding my bike! MUAHAHAHAHAAAA. (and i’m going to donate the santa bike to working bikes, from whom i acquired my shiny new bike — who needs a name — sometime soon. i like my santa bike in theory, but in practice it hurts my wrists to ride it, so i had to either make a bunch of changes to the santa bike or replace it, and i went with a replacement. for sixty dolla! woohoo bargain-hunting recycling charity co-op shopper niqui!) pictures of shiny new bike later. gotta run, now.