Jack Tame: That familiar sinking feeling

I knew it the moment I saw it. My bike just looked a bit... off. It was sitting heavy in the bike rack at work. Everyone else’s bikes sat bright and perky on puckered, plump, pressurised black rubber. There is just something so distinctly sad about a flat tyre. I started walking home with it. I moped up the hill, leading my bike like a handcuffed prisoner. Cyclists zipped past me in the bike lane, one after the other, fast and free, their high-vis vests snapping in the wind, home in no time! I kept on missing the traffic lights. Mope, mope, mope. Ten minutes from home, it started raining. I figured I must have got the flat on the way to work that morning. I couldn’t remember riding over broken glass or thumb tacks or a discarded bucket of nails. Just one of those things, I figured. The Gods saw the weather forecast and thought uh huh! Here’s an idea. A bit of sport. Let’s make Jack’s day just a little bit worse. It took me longer than it should have to change the tube. I’ve recently had to move my furniture around, and I emptied three large storage containers before I dug out my tyre levers. With two thirds of my worldly possessions arranged across the garage floor, I flipped my bike on its back. No sign of a nail. No thumb tacks. No sign of a gaping wound. I’m ashamed to say I took the easy way out and instead of finding the puncture and patching the hole, I just chucked in another tube. I pumped her up to sixty PSI and scoured the grease off my knuckles. Ride on. Nothing gets you down like a flat tyre in the rain. Except, maybe, for waking the next morning, packing your bags for work, scurrying down to the garage and discovering another flat tyre. Brilliant. For a moment I wondered if it was a non-violent protest by someone who just really hates cycle lanes. Since those eco-warriors are letting down the tyres on gas-gazzling SUVs, maybe some of the bike lane NIMBYs have been feeling inspired? As I walked to walk, it started to rain. The good thing about getting a flat tyre two days in a row is that the