Oregon Cycling Magazine

by Ellee Thalheimer

“Flat on your back”

“Feeling deflated.”

“A flat affect.”

“I’m going to pump you up.”

“Pump up the jam.”

“Get pumped.”

The idea of being pumped up and the idea of deflation are commonly used for metaphorical description in the vernacular. What the hell am I talking about? Well, I’m not really sure, but as I led my most recent women-only, fifty and over, cross-country bike tour, I realized that flat tires don’t merely indicate a simple repair to some people. The reality of getting a flat can take on significant metaphorical proportions.

“I’ll pay you extra, whatever,” Ortrun, a 70-year-old German woman on tour, implored.

After I gave a flat workshop, she had grabbed my arm and asked for private tutelage on changing a flat, especially the back wheel. The seldom cycled, debris-laden roads of southern Arizona left a trail of trashed tubes and tire carnage, and it unsettled the nerves of this back-of-the-pack woman who-like many of the riders- had never changed her own tire.

I reassured her and took the CO2 cartridges and loader from her outstretched hands. The bike shop had given her CO2 cartridges because they didn’t think she could change a flat otherwise. That was, of course, baloney, I told her and we began to explore the workings of a rear derailleur and brake release.

As we went through the various stages of changing a tube, she repeated that she needed to know how to do it herself and insisted on repeating each step several times on her own. The very next day, she had a flat on her back wheel. Although she had a little help from her fellow riders, she felt confident and her face shone with accomplishment. Changing the flat was more than the day’s highlight. She passed some internal test. At seventy, she could bike her patooty off as well as be autonomous and independent on the road. It was a feeling that translated into other aspects of her life.

As the tour continued, I would ride up on groups of five or six women pooling knowledge and communally changing a tube. Sometimes they would refuse help and cheer when the unfortunate rider mounted her revitalized bike. Much conversation centered around flats. Eventually, terms like “rim tape,” “long stem,” “tire boot,” and “blow-out” started to be thrown around in casual dinner conversation. By the second month, everyone had experienced a flat and an air of cockiness settled in. It caught more that one visiting husband off-guard. I have to say that it was a treat to watch a sixty-five year old woman glow as she flipped her bike belly up and refused help from a trucker.

Watching the ladies relate to their flats made me think about my first bike tour with my father. I had to yell at him to let me change my own tire. It shifted our entire relationship. It was not just a flat. It was an underlying conversation. However, over time, a flat is just a flat and the significance dies away. Maybe, you find yourself on a date with a cutie biker who steals the repaired wheel away while your futzing with your Camelback and vehemently insists on pumping it up with your minuscule light-weight pump.

You decide, “Why argue?”

Instead of fighting for 100psi, you lounge on the guard rail and sip your energy drink as you watch his forearms. Nothing wrong with that. On other days, you find yourself falling just short of pump tug of war and represent your sex like Rosie the Riveter with tire tool in hand. You may even remove the tire without the tools for effect.

We riders have much to learn from our bikes, and I have the ladies from my tour to thank for opening my eyes and making me ponder the rich possibilities and life lessons offered by a shredded tube on a deserted road.

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• September 2007: A cool old bike comes back to life
• April 2007: Airlines: fare hikes for bikes