Climbing in Yangshuo, China.
I had a blowout on the way to school on Saturday. I recognized the sound of the flat tire immediately. It brought back memories of my first ever flat tire, some 18 years ago. On that occasion, as I drove away from the climbing wall in Bradford, I thought the car was making very funny noises. Never really being of a practical bent, my way of dealing with car problems depended more on the means of detection rather than the diagnosis. If, for example, I smelt burning, I would open the window. If there was a strange noise, I would put the radio on, or just ask the passenger to get out. On the occasion of my first puncture, I turned the radio up. With a completely flat tire though, it becomes pretty obvious that something is wrong once you have picked up speed, however loud The Jam are playing. Eventually I pulled up at the side of the road.
Changing the tire on that occasion took quite some time. I found the tools in the boot but having no idea where to put the jack, had to sit in the car reading the manual. That problem solved I went back into the boot to get the spare. It wasn’t there. I stared into the space where I had expected to find the tire, lifted the carpet, checked under the car itself, but there was nothing to be seen. Mystified, I returned to the manual and was redirected to the engine compartment. Feeling stupid I popped the lid. {What a great expression, must be American.) Well, that was my intention. Actually I just felt around the edge of the bonnet (English, much more evocative) trying to find a catch or lever that would open the thing. Back to the manual again. It must have taken me an hour and a half to change that wheel - a humiliating experience that I was glad nobody had been there to watch, al though a policeman on patrol around the ring road did stop twice to see if everything was OK.
On Saturday though, I am pleased to say, I showed rather more competence. Now I even know a trick to budge a recalcitrant wheel (you bash it with the spare tire and it ejects as if by magic). With LuAnne’s help we were back on the road again in six minutes. My tire was shredded, with a two-inch gash in the tire wall that went right through.
I had a blowout on the way to school on Saturday. I recognized the sound of the flat tire immediately. It brought back memories of my first ever flat tire, some 18 years ago. On that occasion, as I drove away from the climbing wall in Bradford, I thought the car was making very funny noises. Never really being of a practical bent, my way of dealing with car problems depended more on the means of detection rather than the diagnosis. If, for example, I smelt burning, I would open the window. If there was a strange noise, I would put the radio on, or just ask the passenger to get out. On the occasion of my first puncture, I turned the radio up. With a completely flat tire though, it becomes pretty obvious that something is wrong once you have picked up speed, however loud The Jam are playing. Eventually I pulled up at the side of the road.
Changing the tire on that occasion took quite some time. I found the tools in the boot but having no idea where to put the jack, had to sit in the car reading the manual. That problem solved I went back into the boot to get the spare. It wasn’t there. I stared into the space where I had expected to find the tire, lifted the carpet, checked under the car itself, but there was nothing to be seen. Mystified, I returned to the manual and was redirected to the engine compartment. Feeling stupid I popped the lid. {What a great expression, must be American.) Well, that was my intention. Actually I just felt around the edge of the bonnet (English, much more evocative) trying to find a catch or lever that would open the thing. Back to the manual again. It must have taken me an hour and a half to change that wheel - a humiliating experience that I was glad nobody had been there to watch, al though a policeman on patrol around the ring road did stop twice to see if everything was OK.
On Saturday though, I am pleased to say, I showed rather more competence. Now I even know a trick to budge a recalcitrant wheel (you bash it with the spare tire and it ejects as if by magic). With LuAnne’s help we were back on the road again in six minutes. My tire was shredded, with a two-inch gash in the tire wall that went right through.
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