Checking the Air in Your Bike Tires Before Every Ride
It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I’m, as the great Naomi Fry once tweeted, “very paris '68 in that i'm a staunch hard-edged communist as well as a decadent aesthete who lives only for pleasure.” Things should be fairer, and easier. We should all enjoy lives of leisure. Unfortunately, sometimes in pursuit of this, the person I’m rebelling against is me.
I love to do things, but I hate to labor—a distinction both explicable and yet difficult to pinpoint. I love to cook, but hate to clean up. I enjoy tending our garden—the flowers and the fruits and the vegetables—but actually planting things? Please do not ask me about the number of times in my life when I have washed the sheets and then, failing to put them back on, slept in an entirely unmade bed.
A few summers ago, after I had taken apart my bike to clean it thoroughly, my actual wheel burst as I was refilling the tire with air. After many, many years of riding, the wheel well had worn so thin that it—literally—couldn’t take the pressure anymore. The *BANG!* was extremely loud and surprised me so much that I immediately started to cry.
In hindsight, there were signs that this was happening—my tire would occasionally form a lump where it seemed like the tire bead couldn’t hold anymore. But really, if I paid any attention to it, I could’ve noticed that there was an obvious concave where the brakes had rubbed and rubbed until there was barely anything left.
I try to take better care of my bike now, though it is still not exceptionally maintained. But one of the habits I’ve gotten into is checking my tires each time before I ride, topping them off with a bit of air if they need it. It’s exactly the type of chore I loathe—it requires some fussing, and it’s a stop along the way to where I really want to be.
But, doing it also means my bike is always at its most ready—faster, better, smoother. More joyful to ride.