Zen and the Art of Bike Trailer Maintenance - by Jamie

During yesterday’s evening training ride, the bike choo-choo got a flat tire. This made me especially frustrated, because it is still a brand new bike choo-choo (still has that new choo-choo smell). There was no sign of puncture, just a tire with no air in it. As Ray says when reading one of his Thomas the Tank Engine books, it was a “sad choo-choo.”

We discovered this situation at pretty much the half-way point of our 40-minute ride, meaning we had a ways to go before getting back home, most of it up-hill. Fortunately, we were the beneficiaries of the kindness of a stranger. Another cyclist, pulling his own bike choo-choo and passenger, offered us the use of his portable bicycle pump. He said that his own choo-choo (I think he used the term "trailer") had a slow leak in one of its tires, so he felt our pain. I am very grateful for the help that man provided. In hindsight, I was not as polite to him as I should have been, due to the frustration I felt as a result of my uncooperative bike choo-choo. Wherever you are, neighbor, thank you very much for your help.

I only got the tire pumped partially up before starting up again—I had difficulty using the portable pump, and I didn’t want to take too much of the kind stranger’s time while his own tire was slowly deflating. The air in the tire lasted until we got home, but was low enough that for the whole ride back I was anxious and moody—worried that it was going to go flat again at any moment. Not to mention the fact that pulling a fully-laden bike choo-choo with a half-flat tire up a long, slow incline is tough going.

What is my point here? My point is that this was a learning experience. The first lesson was simple: always bring a bike pump. The second lesson was deeper: accept the challenges that come with the adventure we’ve chosen. I have an admiration for Buddhism, especially the Zen variety, and yesterday’s training ride was an opportunity for me to practice walking the Eightfold Path (look it up!). Sadly, I missed the opportunity completely. To paraphrase Joey Tribbiani: I was so far past the path, I couldn’t even see the path. The path was a dot to me.

But therein lies the lesson. It turns out that all this training isn’t just about working the body, building the muscles, and improving the lungs. It’s about getting my brain around what it means to ride for a long time, to “be in the saddle” as it were, and to face all the ups and downs, literal and figurative, that come with that.

Om–aranam–arada.