DMGFlat Tire
As I was getting ready for yesterday evening's ride (more on that in another post), I spotted a group of four kids in a civic driving too fast through the dirt parking lot. As they passed, I was horrified to see that (1) they were driving way too fast, throwing gravel everywhere, (2) they were driving on their tiny spare tire, and (3) the spare tire itself was now flat and crumpled, and starting to disengage from the rim.
They realized what was going on when they got onto the street and sparks started to fly. As I was pedalling out, I heard one of them say, "Do you have a spare? Oh, shit, homie, that was your spare!"
They all whipped out cellphones, and they were in no danger, so I headed on out for my ride. 40 minutes later, I was swearing a blue streak and pulling hundreds of cactus thorns out of my hide. Details are here, but for this story, just picture me looking like a porcupine from my left shoulder all the way down my calf.
When I got back to the lot, the kids were still sitting on the curb, looking depressed. They watched me pull in, and sent the prettiest of the girls to come talk to me. "Um, hi," she said, twirling her hair. "Do you think we can borrow your spare and bring it right back we promise?"
I am old and wise, and the Jedi mind tricks of teenage girls no longer work on me. "I'm sorry, I can't." I said, in a tone that let her know that it wasn't up for discussion. She rolled her eyes and headed back to her friends.
I could have tried harder to help. Lending them my spare was out of the question, but I could have offered them a ride to Sears. But honestly, I knew they weren't in any danger, and I just wanted to get out of my biking clothes so I could remove the rest of the cactus thorns.
For a while I felt kind of guilty for not helping them out somehow. My girlfriend put it really well: "Don't feel bad. Those kids clearly needed that lesson." And they suffered only a couple hours waiting for a ride. That's some pretty lightweight punishment for doing something that dumb.
Mostly, what I keep thinking about is the difference in what I know now versus what I knew when I was 17. I don't ride my bike without mutiple safety nets. I can get six flats on a ride before I'm forced to walk. And my car has a spare and all the tools to use it, plus jumper cables and snow chains. And if all that fails, I have a cellphone and AAA.
Yet here were these kids, driving hard over rough ground on their half-size spare. Stupid. Maybe that's why I feel a bit guilty for not helping: it's pretty clear that they need looking after.