A week without my bike

Last Sunday as I was about half-way through on my way from Greenpoint to Crown Heights, a 25 minutes bike ride, I noticed my rear wheel was a little bit off. I stop to see what's wrong. Bam. The tube has exploded. I got off my bike just in time. The tire is ripped. I drag myself, and the bike home. Carrying my blue knight up the two flights of stairs he seems heavier than normal.

On Monday I went to the bike shop close to school, on 96th Street and Broadway. "What size is the wheel?" Hm. I only measured the width of the rim: four bars less than 1 inch, but that doesn't mean anything to the store assistant. He calls the manager. "How old is the bike? What brand? What color? Aluminum?" "Eighties. Raleigh. Blue. No," I tell him. The diagnosis: a 27 inch tire, 1 and a quarter inch wide.

On Tuesday my roommate's boyfriend comes over to help me out. It's easy to take the rear wheel off. Tire off. Tube off. Tire on. Tube on. Inflate it. Psssjt. Tube out. It turns out we cut the tube pretty bad trying to force the new tire on with a lever. The stores are closed so we can't get a new tube, but we patch the puncture instead. To no avail. Half an hour later, when the tire and the inflated tube are both on again they still say "psssjt" unisono.

On Friday I walked the wheel to the nearest bike shop in Fort Greene. (Crown Heights doesn't have a bike shop yet. What a business opportunity!) The girl bike mechanic takes the tube out. There are about five cuts, neatly arranged around the patch. "What did you do? The tire is brand new!?" the girl says. I tell her the story. She puts on a new tube, and sells me a pink plastic lever. Much safer.

By now my bike has a sound and solid rear wheel again, although both my roommate's boyfriend came to the rescue again (for some reason it didn't occur to me to deflate the tire a little bit in order to squeeze it in between the brake pads), and my boyfriend, who finally ended a long bikeless week Saturday evening, surrounded by the partying crowd in the East Village on the sidewalk of 2nd Street.

I know, I'm also very disappointed in my Dutch, tough, independent self.

PS: Apologies for not writing an English edition of the last post. It was about Sarah Palin. And about Obama. And a squirrel. If enough of you get mad at me for this, I will translate it, although it well be very out-of-date by now.