Flat Fat and Wonky

Flat Tires, Fat Tubes, and One Wonky Eye   

Some neighbors are readers and followers of our blog. I know, you’re thinking something along the lines of ‘have they no other way to waste time?’ Maybe they are simply being kind and supporting this old scribbler? Whichever, I appreciate it.

Recently some readers have mentioned my lack of recent posts. There has been quite a ground-swell. Requests for a new post doubled (from 1 to 2) and there’s been a clamor for me to get back to a reasonably reliable schedule (OK, the clamor went from nobody to three or four people). It’s hard to ignore such a movement.

So, here we are.

Sharon and I aren’t riding our trikes as much as we had done. New young dog with some behavior issues. Hot weather. Sharon jumping in front of the Nan keeps the kids bus. But we want to start riding regularly again. Despite some trepidation about Kelbi, we’ve done a few 12 to 15-mile rides, without any disasters.

On a recent Monday morning, I noticed that my tricycle looked odd and discovered that my front tire was flat. OK, it’s essentially a 3-wheel bicycle with bicycle tires therefore fixing this should be no big deal, right? Except it was.

My buddy Texas Mike came to help. Tire repair is something he’s done several times before. We, meaning he, broke the tire from the rim and found a rip in the tube inner seam. Mike tried unsuccessfully to patch that but a rip, unlike a puncture, doesn’t lend itself to patching. OK, time to go buy a tube to fit my 20”x 2.6” tire.

We tried one of the high-end bike shops: they had a few 20” tubes, all too narrow. We tried everyone’s inexpensive go-to, Target: they had very narrow tubes and very fat tubes, 3.0 or fatter. Nothing we could use. Mike used his phone to search Amazon — Jeff, the billionaire — again too narrow or 3.0 and fatter. We went to the highest-end bike shop, the Maserati-dealership of bicycles, and they had plenty of fat tubes: 20 x 3.0, 20 x 4.0 but no 2.6.

I called the manufacturer of the tricycle to ask for suggestions. I was expecting something like ‘you could use a 2.3,’ or ‘try the bike-tires-r-us’ place. Instead, what he said was, “give me your address and I’ll get two tubes shipped to you.” I gave him the address and asked, don’t you need my credit card information? “No. We’ll send an email with the tracking information. Need anything else?” Wow. Damn. Thanks.

Remember, Jeff had 3.0, Target had 3.0, and Maserati had 3.0. Nobody but the trike manufacturer seemed to have 2.6 tubes. The new tubes (two to a package) arrived and as Mike and I were fitting it into the tire and onto the rim, I happened to notice stamped into the side of the new inner tube was 20”x3.0”. Mike and I took a ride after the tire was repaired and inflated and it was fine.

Meanwhile, during all the tire repair epoch, I had an ophthalmologist exam; I’m tired of not seeing well enough to be comfortable driving. As usual the appointment was without any drama and I walked away with a bifocal prescription for driving and reading and a prescription for computer-only specs that I planned to buy on line.

Texas Mike pointed me to a great website: 10 gazillion frames, all the lens options you’d want, and a provision to try them on using a computer camera (you know, the one we all used for zoom-meetings a couple years ago?). I was whelmed, maybe even over-whelmed.  Needing help, I called the 800 number and got through the queue really quickly.

My contact was a young-sounding woman for whom English wasn’t her native tongue. I can be patient with some language difficulty; however, less so with non-stop yammering. She had been taught to engage the customer to the point that I couldn’t get two-words in. I’d start to explain my difficulty trying to order through their website and she went into a tirade of yammer. Please, stop talking for a minute. More inane chatter. I can’t form a sentence. Please, listen. A fresh burst of yammering. That’s it. You’re done. I’m gone.

The following Monday, I tried again. Got someone with the ability to pay attention. My wonky right eye, which is 5-mm off center, prevents my being able to get bifocals but I ordered driving glasses. I’m looking forward to their arrival in the not-too-distant future.

I’ll try to stay on top of blog posts. You bear with me and come back. Soon? If it’s your shout, mines always Guinness.