Fixing My Bike

I LOVE my bike. It's super cute and I love riding around on it. The only problem is that Caldwell is NOT a bicycle-friendly town. No sidewalks, hardly any bike lanes, intersections with no stop-signs in any way. It can be dangerous! So it seemed inevitable that only a little over a week after getting my bike, I would get my first flat tire. Like I had ANY idea what to do. I happened, though, to mention it to Mary when I was at her house helping her set up her own blog (yay!) and she offered to help me out.




Saturday morning, I brought my bike over to their house and they helped me fix it. I did it all on my own too (of course, with LOTS of help and guidance). And Mary, being the sweet lady she is, documented it all! So here's what happened....

We started first by turning the bike upside down and taking off the wheel. This required some upper arm strength on my part which I sorely lack. It took longer than expected but eventually came off (the wheel, not my arm... that would be a whole separate blog post...)
Once the wheel came off, we had to use this handy little tools that helped pull off the outer wheel so that we could get to the defective tube.

I had to push out all of the air from the tube so that we could find the hole. It was so small that it required more than just the naked eye.

So Mary brought out a tub of water and we put the tube into the water so look for the tell-tale signs of little air bubbles. We finally found it right next to the valve.

Then it was time to patch up the hole. We circled it with a pen and then cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol. I put a thin layer of cement onto the area and let it dry before putting the patch on very carefully and then covering it with some corn starch. I don't know why the corn starch but maybe to make sure the sides of the patch got covered so no other air would go in? Who knows. But I follow directions.

Yay! Fixed!
Then it was putting the tired back on- supervised very closely by the talented Dr. Ted.




Unfortunately, we had to try and pump the tire back up three times because the inner tube kept popping out. Finally on the third try, Mary and Ted held the tire while I pumped it up. That seemed to work. And just goes to show that you should never fix a bike on your own. Always have a friend. Friends are nice.

Got a good arm workout, at least!

Last minute checks to make sure all is well.... and....
oh happy day, the bike is fixed!


Thank you so much, Mary and Ted! You guys rocks!