I was using the new bicycle pump with vigour and my partner questioned whether I may have overdone it.
I dismissed her concerns as the ignorant fussings of a mere woman and we took to the road on our intrepid countryside ride through the hillier parts of Hertfordshire.
An hour in, and on scaling one of the steeper roads, I found some resistance in the rear wheel. I stopped, dismounted and began my inspection.
"Look at your tyre!" she exclaimed, pointing to the point at which the inner tube had pushed its way free of the tyre. Obviously, I had earlier decided that my chances of needing tools (calipers; spanners; pump) would be negligible, and now realised that I had, indeed, been mistaken.
We were a long way from anywhere useful, I had no choice but to "improvise". Without a pump,I couldn't let the air out in order to push the tyre back into place, and therefore elected to remove the break-blocks and thus allow the now hypertrophic tyre to continue to turn. After five minutes of despair (which included the avoidance of a particularly persistent wasp) ,and clutching at straws, I deployed two dispirate pieces of fallen branch to effect this repair.
However, during the application of the Fred Flinstone approach, we witnessed the miracle of two unrelated cyclists (and I mean, REAL ones, with lightweight racers, and spandex outfits) happened to approach from both directions at speed, and both did the decent thing and stopped and volunteered to help.
I suspect that it was the site of a bike being hit by a chunk of wood that did it. I'd be the same witnessing a kicked dog.
Anyway, two minutes later I was back on the road, chastened but happy that the world is still a place where a sweaty man in lycra is willing to stop in the woods to help a complete stranger with his rupture.
Actually, I could have put that better.
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