The Best Tire Change

Just weeks after first moving to Seattle in 1992, i found an excellent 30 mile loop through forested parks and winding curves -- The Mercer Island Loop. It's a wonderful ride and i did it several times a month for the first six or eight years i lived in Seattle. I love the curves coming north on the east side of the island; it's gently downhill, the road runs through heavy forest, curving around deep ravines with fairly little traffic.  It feels like i'm cruising through an alternate world. It's a joy and i always just fly.  Every time i come out of the trees at the north end of the island it's jarring.

Here's the route -- if  you don't live in Seattle, just skip down.

I would leave home in Eastlake, cross over I-5, wind through gorgeous Interlaken Park, briefly join the very fast traffic through the Washington Park arboretum, ride down the Olmsted curves, cruise south along Lake Washington past a certain Seattle Rock Star's house and pedal uphill through Frink Park and over the floating bridge.  Then i would ride 13 miles counterclockwise around the edge of Mercer Island.

One drizzly day in November 1994 i was riding this loop, enjoying the sweeping curves, the forest, the lake and the rain.  After the loop around the island, when i was returning on the floating bridge the rain started pelting down harder.  For some reason, which i cannot remember, when i got to the Seattle side of the bridge that day, i decided not to return through Frink Park as usual, but instead went through the bike tunnel above I-90, and rode up 25th Avenue through the Central District neighborhoods to Jefferson Street. This is a very familiar route for me now, i ride it several times a week, it's a perfectly comfortable neighborhood, (it has an undeserved reputation as being somewhat dodgey).  But this was the first time i had ever ridden in this area and i was finding my way, trying to figure out my next turn. That's when i got a flat.

Everyone who knows me knows that i enjoy riding in the rain, but changing a tire in the rain is another story; so i walked across the street to the bus shelter. There was an 85 year old black woman sitting on the bench in the shelter.  She said she'd never ridden a bike, and looking at her walker, said she didn't think she was ever going to.  I asked if she minded if i joined her and when she agreed, i sat down and quickly popped off my wheel.  As i started shoving the tire lever at the tire she said, "Why are you doing THAT?"

I explained tire beads and pinch flats.  She seemed very interested.  When i pulled out the tube she asked about that, and i explained.  When i felt around in the tire for the offending piece of glass, she asked why and i explained preventing a second flat.   I patched and pumped, tucked and palmed.  At each step she asked questions and i spent the 10 minutes till her bus came teaching her how to change a flat.  We both had fun.  It turned what could have been a miserable experience into a memorable one.