Push Biking
Posted on March 13, 2007 at 08:31 PM
I love biking, but I am not very good with bikes. In fact, I would say I am pretty bad with bikes. For example, when I was trying to exit my house last night, I got stuck in my door with my bike. The door simply wasn't open far enough, so the handlebars got stuck, and then I got stuck behind them, trying unsuccessfully to push through while having a conversation with my neighbor about his rock 'n' roll show for kids.
Since I am not very good with bikes, I have gotten used to something that I will refer to as "push biking." Push biking is the biking I do when something is wrong with my bike, such as a poorly-oiled chain, half-inflated tire, or host of other problems. The sensation when I am biking is that yeah, I'm biking and it's fun, but I think I might go faster if I got off and pushed. My legs always seem like they're working entirely too hard for what I'm getting out of the bike, especially when I'm biking with other people and I see them zip past me with ease.
Last night was one of the first really warm nights of the early spring, and I wanted to ride my bike. I needed to ride my bike. There are some great creepy areas out somewhat north of my house, filled with dark warehouses, that needed exploring. So I took out my bike and discovered that the front tire was flatish. Not flat, flatish. Workable, right? So I got out the tire pumps. Yes, pumps. Multiple. See, I keep them both because one is kind of broken and one is really broken, and I never remember which is which. Last night, they were both acting pretty well broken, and after laboring over the tire for ten minutes, I decided that flatish was not that bad. So after I wrangled my way out the door, I started biking, and it was great. Absolutely beautiful. But then my back tire did this...thing it does. It will start to shift to the side and rub against my kickstand, creating this terrible racket and making riding about as comfortable as sitting on a hog with a seizure. After riding the seizure hog for about five more minutes, I gave up, and walked ol' Porky to a friend's house nearby to get her patched up well enough to ride home.
You might say I should get a new bike. But that's expensive. More likely, I'll buy another pump that will break, kick my back tire until the rubbing stops, and push bike into the sunset.