Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Pain in the rear

As usual my militant body clock rang at 4.46am, and I tried in vain to hit snooze. After delaying the inevitable for 14 minutes I turned on the light and resumed looking for my beige travel money belt, a search I’d quit on last thing the night before. I quickly found it under my bed, which meant I’d be able to carry my phone with me on my bicycle, to upload my ride to the Strava app. Before zipping away my phone I used its flashlight to illuminate the barn door combination lock, before wheeling out my bike.

As is so often the case when I run or ride in the morning, it is still technically nighttime, and I feel slightly unnatural walking, scantily clad, down darkened driveway past my neighbor’s bedroom window where they are exercising their gift of being able to sleep past stupid o’clock. But I do love mornings, and mostly I find it a treat to step outside and expose my pasty thighs to moon or starlight.

I hoisted myself onto my blue Bauer Momentum and rolled out onto the smooth, black asphalt of my quiet, suburban street. The main road was extra quiet for early Saturday morning due to the covid-19 lockdown, and I turned and began pedaling up Great North Road to where it starts gently descending towards the start of Ash Street.

I’d forgotten to take a good look at the stars from my driveway, and now couldn’t because of the bright streetlights, and I couldn’t be bothered stopping. I did momentarily look up, but the thought of how stupid I’d feel if I crashed my bike on an empty, four-lane road caused me to quickly revert to conventional means of navigation.

On the other side of the road a police car drove by, and I did a quick mental checklist of how I might be breaking the law. I say “might” because I still don’t know if it’s illegal to cycle in the dark without a front light. But, hey, at least I have a vigorously flashing rear light, which the police would have seen when they looked back to check if I at least had a vigorously flashing rear light, making me not worth imprisoning.

Unbeknownst to me, there lay on the other side of the road something of greater concern.

On through the giant, ghost intersection that marked the beginning of Titirangi Road, and the hill climb into the Waitakere Ranges – my languid, lockdown legs and lungs keenly anticipating the resistance.

Keen to keep my ride under 40 minutes, I turned around about one kilometer shy of the summit, and began screaming downhill. The roadside electronic speed display awoke to show 45km/hr.

Ash Street traffic is normally heavy, and out of habit I rode quite close to the curb. Suddenly I felt a mild bump and realized I’d run over something that had attached itself to my rear tyre. Then I heard a flapping sound and felt both a lack of air cushioning ... and deflated.

Crap. My second puncture in three days. I pulled over and began running my fingertips round the tyre to find the offending article. These things can sometimes be hard to find ... and sometimes they are a ruddy great 2.5-inch nail! I pulled it out, uploaded my ride (12.6km, 30 minutes), and began the two-kilometer walk home, both wondering how a lame nail had so accurately and effectively found its target (had it been a trap laid by a schoolboy?.. I know I used to dream up such schemes), and mildly berating myself for not riding 3cm wider of the curb. “Oh well, I’d enjoyed a long period of inflation," I figured, "so I guess was now due a couple of flatties.” Yes, plural. The other one had been on my other bike, a newer road bike that, after he'd stored for eons in my folks’ garage, my Christchurch-based bro-in-law had recently given me.

The nail pierced the tyre side wall and both sides of the inner tube, so I took the punctured tube off my other bike, repaired it, and paired it with the holy tyre - which had more tread - on my Bauer. A nice wee activity to do with the kids of a lockdown Sunday morning.