I was excited to finally make it in to by the hitch for my child's trail-a-bike he's been asking me to hook up for weeks, and with enough time to get home and attach it and maybe even take him for a test ride before my meeting! On my way out, I filled up my tires and then headed home. I made it almost a mile and heard a loud "pop". I quickly realized tht wasn't someone else, but was my tire, completely flat all of a sudden. Not along my normal route home, my options were to walk with my bike to the bus, transfer to another and then walk the couple blocks home to fix it. I thought about it a moment and realizing I was completely out of cash too, I decided to instead walk to the nearest bike shop to have them replace it. Luckily, I Live in Portland where there are lots of bike shops and it was only about 6 blocks away.
I was SO glad I chose that option. By the time I got there I realized it wasn't just my tube, but my tire was falling apart. I was worried I'd overfilled and caused it. Apparently though it was just its time. The side bead on the tire had ripped off.
So I resigned to buying a new tube and tire and sat down to hang at my second shop of the hour. The guy was very nice and after debating between another lower, entry grade tire and the next level up, he changed it out relatively quickly.
The whole ordeal probably tacked another hour or so onto my commute. I was fortunate that I didn't have anything I HAD to make it to then and got home with about 15 minutes to spare before my meeting. Needless to say, the trail-a-bike install had to wait until after.
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