The Tragedy of Threes...In The Form Of A Bicycle.

I had such high hopes today!   I had the entire day to myself and wanted to fix a pesky problem that I had been putting off all weekend:  Fixing my rear bike tire.

A little history.    Over the last three weeks.... I have had "problems."   First:  I thought my bike rim was bent...turns out I broke the Axle.   One sloppy, dirty, greasy afternoon later.   I fixed it! Yeah!  ( Axle grease is a PAIN to get off of your hands..and it clings to everything.)

However!   I installed it wrong.   Hey!  Live and learn from our mistakes...right?   I failed to tighten it sufficiently so the bike was riding on the locking nut, NOT the actual axle....   So...the axle bends ( but does not break at least!)    Time for another order to Amazon.

THIS TIME...I install it properly.  Yeah!    And then....

I break a spoke.  A common wear and tear issue that I have fixed countless times.   And...unlike the axle,  it is not even "life threatening".   I'll fix it on Monday...when I have plenty of free time and will be looking for things to do.  Add in that Cheryl also purchased a group of 20 spokes while ordering my axle.   I'm all set. What could possibly go wrong?

HOWEVER!   All of the spokes are too short.  That is right,  I carefully measured the spokes and actually told her to order a size that  was slightly smaller. (because my other spokes were too long.   Long Spokes tend to pop tires when you adjust them if they do not have at least a little bit of play.)  It's an oversight on my part, because I would simply not know until I had to replace an actual spoke....  Like now.

Luckily, I had an old spoke that I cut down to size.   It fixed the issue and works great.   Problem solved!   Let's go down to the gas station and pump this bad boy up.  It's a lovely morning so I walk there.(because Cheryl has the Subie at work today)   Puff it up and we are ready to ride!

I hook up the tire to the bike, only to see that there is still an unusual wobble in the rotation.   Turns out,  a small section of the inner tube is trapped between the rim and the outer tire.   An "easy" fix.  Let's do it now.   Pop!   Fzzzzzzztttttt!   And...end scene.

So I popped the inner Tube.   With no means of patching it,   I'm at an impasse and done for the day.  Instead for fixing the bike...I have  ( once again)  made it unusable.  I can only solve-so-many problems-only-to-cause-new-problems-to-emerge so many times before I throw in the towel.

There is a small silver lining in that I was able to ( hopefully) fix Cheryl's sewing machine.  Or at least tune it up a bit.   I will require her to take a look at it before claiming victory just yet.
It's a good thing to,  because I was about to write an entirely different Blog post about  Life being a harsh Mistress that we forced to marry and endure her whims against our will.
 Luckily I have backed off from that post and decided to write this one.   Besides,  I forgot most of my barbed poetic muses that I pieced together as I walked my bike back from Casey's in the hot Iowa Sun.

Hope everyone is having a better day than me.   Or at least better than I had going on this morning.   Things always look better AFTER something disastrous happens.  ( Or usually...maybe.   We shall see)

A minor note:   I'm probably missing the big picture here in that Life is trying to show me I need to either....Buy Stronger Bike Parts....OR   Go on a Diet!   Because it seems the rear bike tire is the one with all of the problems...and all of my weight on it.   Do they even make bikes for "husky" guys?   that are not ...wagons. Perhaps I need to investigate that instead of wondering why the problems keep persisting.