Luck
Yesterday was a bit of a strange day.I found this great loop to ride in Pflugerville, which is only a few minutes away from where we live. I've been searching in Google Maps for the last few weeks, just zooming in and looking around, and I've found some terrific courses to ride.
This course was about 2.5 miles long and went right through a park, which sounded nice. It would be about a 30-minute ride, which is a good workout without going past my fitness threshold. So it all sounded good.
I drove to Pflugerville about noon. As I turned onto the street where the path started, I heard kind of a clicking sound. I turned off the radio and still heard it, a repetitive, rhythmic sound coming from the front left of my car.
Just a guess: crap.
I pulled over, got out, and took a look at the front left tire. It wasn't flat, but there was a big screw in the tire.
Great. Big screw in the tire=Big screw in my ass. So to speak.
I started to pull the screw out, using my key, but I heard the sound of rushing air and stopped immediately. Great. At this point, the only thing I could possibly do is find the closest tire service store and drive there very, very slowly.
So, of course, I decided to go ride instead.
If you work out, you know the twisted logic that lead to that conclusion. I figured that if my day was going to suck, I might as well go do something I enjoyed and get my workout in first. If the tire was flat when I got back, then it probaby wouldn't have made it to the tire store, anyway, and better to be changing the tire on a quiet street than on the side of a bustling avenue.
Or something like that. Really, I just wanted to go ride and I was pissed off that there was a screw in my tire.
The ride was great. It was a beautiful, peaceful course, and it was sixty degrees and clear. It was all paved, and I haven't fallen on a paved course in several months, so it was pretty relaxing. I decided on the way back that if the tire was flat, it had still been worth it.
It wasn't flat, though. So I called Gloria, had her search via Google Maps to find the closest tire store location (less than a mile away), and I click-click-clicked over there.
"What's the closest place to walk to from here for lunch?" I asked the tire guy.
"Oh, don't go anywhere," he said. "We'll have it fixed in twenty minutes or so."
It was thirty, but it was still pretty fantastic. Disaster averted.
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