Flats No. 13 & No. 14

You might look at the numbers in that headline and wonder what kind of fail magnet I am for so many minor misfortunes, but in dealing with the amount of cycling I’m doing, my philosphy is simple: Flats Happen.

Some of them are not my fault as in this what-are-the-odds 3/8ths-inch metal splinter no thicker or stronger than an eyelash or a dog brush’s bristle that I chanced to roll over yesterday morning in the only way to allow the flimsy thing to impale my rear tire and puncture its tube (that’s a slice of nickel on the left for scale):

And some are almost entirely my doing (albeit exacerbated by the cheap materials used in cheap tubes) as in the dismemberment of my front tire’s innertube stem when I attempted to top it off with a few extra PSI after patching the rear tire’s tube before leaving the office yesterday evening:

I know some people who live in heightened fear of flats and I know some people who’ve gone years between them. With me averaging better than two a month year-to-date — or one every 316 or so miles pedaled — they are nothing more than minor and inevitable annoyances. And with all the practice I’ve had repairing them, pretty quickly resolved.