April 27: 100 psi girl

Jennie and I have been doing a lot of cycling lately, which has reminded me of my university days when I rode my bike everywhere. Yesterday, prior to our 25 mile ride, she made the comment that she is always waiting on me to leave the apartment before each of our bike rides.

"Why, of course dear, I apologize that I am always making you wait while I MAKE SURE THAT YOUR BIKE IS READY!"

Now, do not misunderstand me - I love tinkering on our bikes. I generally cause more damage than what I fix but there are certainly some zen-like qualities to spending hours crawling around your machine tinkering away and learning how things work. Now, being married, I find that I spend twice the amount of time working on bikes (mine and hers) and sometimes I am a little pressed for time making sure that they are both ready before our rides.

So, with that being stated I proceeded to tell Jennie, "Honey, I love working on your bike, but if you do not love waiting for me, perhaps you could learn a to do a few things to help me out to get out the door quicker?"

"What can I do?" was her response.

"Well," I replied, "The number one thing to remember in bike maintenance is to respect your tires and air pressure. The rest of your machine can be in shambles but ultimately it is your wheel goin' round 'n round that gets you home."

"Ok, no problem," she says, "I will top up the air in my bike tires."

So, Jennie proceeds to loosen the valve cap, unscrew the valve, trys to attach the pump, unlocks the pump, retrys to attach the pump, looks at me confused, trys to pump the pump, realizes that is still not attached properly, unlocks the pump, again retrys to attach the pump, hears a lot of hissing but cannot get the pump to lock again, looks at me in desperation, takes off the pump, pushes the pump back on, gets the pump to lock but realizes it is not on all the way, unlocks the pump, steps back from the bike, recomposes herself, looks desperately at David and waits for him to step in.

I step in, attach the pump correctly then hand it back to Jennie and say, "Ok, pump."

Jennie starts to pump...well she pushes the pump 1/2 way down and says, "Wow, the tire must still be full!"

I look at the pressure gauge, which reads 90 psi, and tell Jennie that I normally fill both of her tires to 120 psi. Jennie's eyes suddenly look alarmed and full of disbelief. "120 psi!!! How the heck am I supposed to fill the tire to 120 psi?!"

So she continues to struggle, trying everything from leaning on the air pump, sitting on it, and generally hoping that she will be able to will the pump to move...it does not. She finally gave up at 100 psi. She is my 100 psi girl. (If you are interested, once I shooed her away from my work space, I got her bike to its normal "ride-ready" state, which includes 120 psi air pressure in the tires...)

So that takes me today...Jennie was awfully quiet while waiting for me to leave for our bike ride after work today...hmmm, that is strange....normally she has so much to say to me while she is waiting....!!!

A+