Having remembered the dramas from the bike trip the weekend before, I carefully check my seat pack - yep, there is a tube in there. Strange, I didn't remember replacing the tube that I used last time with a new tube, but, sure enough, there is a tube in there, so, it must of just slipped my mind.
Having learned from my mistakes from the last weekend, one being, that my tire pump does not work with the bike tube I currently have, I acted responsibly and stopped at the bike shop to purchase a new pump. Damn, the store was closed. I look up at the sun, I look at my bike, beckoning me from within my car. I have only had a flat tire a few times in my years of riding experience. What are the chances that I would get 2 flat tires in 2 consecutive weekends? Slim. Very slim. The bike beckoned. The sun shined. Heck with it, let's go ride.
Armed against swooping magpies (notice the native headdress below), I had off into the sun....
I found a lovely area to ride that has back roads, beautiful scenery and not much traffic. Some of the roads are only one lane like this one.
After a few hours, I decided to turn around and head back. As I approached Adkins Damn, I pull into the park and head toward the restrooms. When I noticed that the road had turned very rough…unless…no, it couldn’t be! It was! Another flat tire! In 2 weekends! Damn it! What were the chances. No pump. No one to call, what to do, what to do. I remember that there was a store/gas station at the entrance to the park. Maybe I could convince them to give me a hand.
I clacked into the store, wearing my biking shoes, which make you waddle like a duck. A woman with long gray hair standing behind the counter listened dispassionately to my woes. Just as she was about to dismiss me, this little old man came up and pointed to my bike. I pushed it towards him, as he began to make more gestures. It was then that I saw the hole in his throat and realized that he had no voice box and could not speak. He motioned for me to follow him. We left the building and walked back to a big workshop. He had all sorts of tools, including an air compressor. He rigged up some sort of straw that he hooked to the air compressor and then to the bike. I got my replacement tube out of my pack, only to realize that it was the blown tube. Geez! I knew I had not replaced the tube yet! So, now we had to figure out how to patch the tube. We looked at each other in dismay. Tick tock, tick tock. Then, a smile light up his face, he held up his hand, motioning that he would be right back, and he reappeared a few minutes later, triumphantly carrying a bike tire repair kick. He filed away at the tube, got some glue and patched the tube. He somehow got the straw to feed the air from the air compressor into the tube. I was making motions to show him that he was an angel – flapping my arms around and making halo motions over my head, when he pointed to my mouth and to his ear. Right. Just because he couldn’t talk doesn’t mean that he couldn’t hear. Which is good because , as I found out, it is quite difficult to gesture to someone that they are an angel, if you don’t know sign language.
Because of my angel here on earth, I was able to ride off into the sunset, smiling as I ducked and dodged, fending off magpies the whole way home.
1 comment:
Either Australia is full of the nicest, most helpful people in the world, or your angel sits on your shoulder watching out for you. And you keep it very busy!
Post a Comment