Like It Could Pop

Got my flat tire fixed today.  The mountain bike, one of two I’ve borrowed from my mom made it through most of the year despite daily rides out on the trail, till one morning a month ago, when I noticed the rear tire looking saggy.   In Beijing this would mean we’d throw it in the back or the Odyssey and ask the man who had a three-wheeled vehicle with the cone shaped cover and a road side bike repair shop he inhabited till it got too cold.  Practical, the Chinese approach would be to search for the hole in the inner tube in a tub of water, (where’s it bubbling?), file the tube near the hole and apply patch which you’d glue on and pound down for a buck fifty.  Americans, litigious, told me they wouldn’t do tube checks because if anything went wrong and they were sued “there’s no telling what would happen.”

And though I bike every day I wasn’t in a rush to get the blue bike fixed.  The red bike beside it would do.  My mom’s bike is cut differently.  I adjusted the seat upward.  Otherwise the gears, the brakes and much of the rest of things were the same as my stepdad’s blue bike.  I did have to keep adjusting that bike seat, as it seemed to slip. 

At the end of my bike ride today, I had to admit, something was wrong.  My left knee was sore.  The outer hinge of my knee had great pressure and felt like it could pop.  And it occurred to me that I was aggravating this every time I rode the bike. I looked online.  It seems my patella is under a lot of stress.  This happens to cyclists, especially those who’s seats are too low or too high.   It occurred to me that this has grown in severity over the last month and wasn’t properly an issue before that.  It only took me a month to realize that riding that red bike is hurting my knee. 

I threw the blue bike into the back of the car and drove by the bike shop to confirm it was open.  The same guy who’d looked the bike over eleven months ago came out to meet me and told me he’d get it done in the next twenty minutes.  When I came back, he told me he had found a piece of glass that was the culprit.  I asked him about my knee, and he confirmed and mentioned that many things like the pedal being off balance can put undue off-balance pressure where it oughtn’t to be.  It was about twenty bucks for parts and labor.  It struck me as not expensive though it was more than ten times what it would have cost in Beijing to have a patch put on, at the roadside stand.  I hope this means better days ahead for my knee. 

Friday 7/31/20