Good Samaritan

On Saturday I went for a long bike ride. I mentioned in the blog a few weeks back that I believed that I had torn my meniscus. An MRI (no one told me how scary MRI's are!), confirmed this. Apparently the vast majority of meniscus tears require arthroscopic surgery, however, my tear was in the 5% that may possibly heal without intervention. The nice doctor recommended I take a month and gradually work up to my usual activity level. We could then re-evaluate the injury and see how I was doing. So far, although still a little sore, it seems to be improving. Thus, I was riding my bike, (very little knee stress), through the fog up to the Golden Gate bridge last weekend, after a pleasant ride through Marin County. I never get tired of the view up the hill to the bridge. The San Francisco Bay drifts by to the left and the steep Marin hillsides tower above on the right. Dissecting them, the Golden Gate joins The City to Marin County, enabling that strange mix of great wealth, agriculture and hippies to mingle. As I climbed, a huge tanker ship sluggishly maneuvered its way under the bridges span towards the ocean, it's hulk appearing and disappearing as the wind drove the fog past. Directly above me the north tower of the bridge peaked out from above the thick fog. The fog despite it's negative impact on summer temperatures, makes for some seriously pretty views.

My reverie was interrupted by a suddenly flat tire. I kinda' deserved it, my balding tires needed replacing and the long fingered chore was well past it's due date. There was nothing to do but get out the patch kit, and get to repairing. Glue was applied to tube, and ten minutes later rubber was reapplied to the road. Within a minute the tire was flat again. I inverted the bike and removed the tube to discover that I had an unrepairable puncture. It had ripped around the base of the valve. This was bad. I didn't have a replacement tube, and I was on a little traveled side road, in freezing fog. Time to phone a friend, or the wife to be precise, and ask her to pack the kids in the car, and cross the bridge in rush hour traffic to just to pick up her idiot, tube forgetting husband. She was not happy. At all. At all.

Then my savior appeared. Pedaling furiously up the hill. Him, You alright ? Me, Ahh, actually no I'm not...

So, Dino, (thats all I know about you, your first name), I know you will probably never read this, but just in case:

Thanks for the tube dude!