Warm sunny slow lazy easy beautiful days, the days when everyone wants to be a bike messenger are the days you never get a flat tire. Cold rainy dirty road grimy busy crazy understaffed days, the days when no one would want your job are the days you get flat tires.
Yesterday I got a flat tire then proceeded to get two more in a very short time. I still don’t know what caused the punctures but the third time I heard that the tube blow I nearly threw my bike across 4th Avenue. If it was something as big and obvious as an upholstery tack or chunk of a broken 40 bottle or even a spoke poking through the rim strip I wouldn’t have wasted three tubes and all that time and energy. (This little stock photo would be more appropriate if the hands were cut up, bloody and filthy beyond recognition.)
The first repair was stress free and relatively quick for a rear wheel on a single speed bike with full fenders. I thought to myself how long it’s been since I flatted at work. I checked the tire and the rim strip and replaced the tube. The second repair was a little slower, colder, dirtier and more stressful in the wind tunnel in front of 1111 3rd, hearing all the jobs called out on the radio. The third time I was blind with rage. They say flats come in threes. But if you get all three within 35 minutes it’s a bit frustrating. I’ve changed plenty of tires. But working in a warm dry shop listening to KEXP sipping a beer fixing a flat tire on a clean bike is a long way from fixing your third wet filthy flat tire out on the street at 3:15pm on a busy rainy day with the dispatcher’s voice barking out jobs. In situations like that, simple tasks that you’ve done hundreds of times become difficult. And it gets harder to think clearly. I called my dispatcher and said,
“I’m either going to walk home and get a new bike or walk to Mobius and fix this, I’m totally fucked.” and he said
“whatever’s quickest” in an efficient dispatcher voice.
I handed off all my work to my already overworked co-workers and walked to Mobius. My hands completely black with road grime with some blood mixed in. I bought a new tire a new rim strip and two more tubes. And I fixed that thing and went back to work. I washed my hands three times but was still leaving black smudges on the very important legal documents. So you wanna be a bike messenger?
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