Calling For A Tow Truck For The First Time

There She Goes...

I guess all riders would go through this one time or another during their riding career – getting the bike on a tow truck.

It happened to me last week, on the second day of the three day getaway trip. I was so excited to ride but had to cut short the whole trip because of this.

Frustrated I was, but I did not let it cloud my day for I understand it is always better to get such experience early on the career rather than later.

The problem came from the patch job I did for my last puncture. 

Apparently air leaks from the same spot after some 2000km since I patched up the tire. It must have been my poor workmanship that caused this so I have no one to blame. I tried to repair the same spot but after 4 failures to revive the tire, I resorted to calling a tow truck to get to the nearest dealer for a tire change.

The arrangement didn't take too long but the time for the truck to arrive took hours. Stranded without mobility was definitely not fun but the circumstance presented itself to me as a lesson.

There were two things I learned from episode:

     1.     It might do me good if I were to use tube tire for my long way round trip. It could be a pain in the ass when a puncture does happen, but I figure at least I can change the tube and wouldn't be left hopeless once a repair of tubeless tire turns south.

    2.     The unexpected will happen during the long way round trip. Instead of facing such irregularity for the first time on the trip, better to experience them now and learn to be patient and do something helpful, rather than just sitting there sourly.

I used my time to see the bikes go by, talk to fellow bikers and, guess what, read! (I have a kindle handy with me all the time)

Finally the tow truck came and I rode shotgun to the dealer.

Too bad the dealer that I went to didn't have any tire for replacement. They patched up my tire and sent me away, asking me to ride no more than 100km/h on my way home.

So there you go, riding on a way-less-than-perfect tire to cover some 300 plus km on highway.

Thanks to this absence of new tire I learned how to “nurse” the tire so that it wont break down half way.

All in all I wasn't thrilled to have my trip cut short, but I was thankful nevertheless to have had a chance to prep myself, no matter how trivial it may seem.

Cheers,

Regards,

CK