Your back tire looks sad, mister

October 28, 2026

I heard it from a porch step about fourteen miles out, in the little town with the grain elevator and one stop sign. A boy of maybe eight, holding a juice box, pointed at my bike and said, "Your back tire looks sad, mister." He was right. I'd been feeling the rear go a little vague in the corners for the last few miles and had decided it was the road surface. That's my usual way of dealing with things.

It was 48°F and gray, the kind of late October morning where the sky can't decide whether to commit. I'd left home with the 32 mm tires at 60 psi. When I squeezed the rear on the bench by the post office, it felt closer to 25.

The culprit

Running my fingers slowly around the tread, I found it on the second pass: a honey locust thorn, about an inch long, sitting in the rubber like it had been invited. The locusts along the county road are dropping everything right now. Pods, leaves, and apparently these. I've ridden that stretch for years and never noticed the trees had thorns until one of them came home with me.

So, the routine, with cold fingers that took longer than usual:

• pull the thorn first, before anything else, so it doesn't get the new tube too
• tire off one side, find the hole by pumping a little air and listening
• scuff, glue, wait the full five minutes, which always feels like twenty
• patch, tube back in, then about 180 strokes on the little frame pump

I gave up somewhere around what my thumb said was 45 psi. Good enough for the way home.

Going back slower

The fourteen miles back took a little under an hour and a half, which is slow even for me. The softer tire rode surprisingly well on the chip seal. Quieter, too. I kept glancing down at it the way you check on a dog that ate something odd, but it held.

When I passed back through town, the boy was gone and the porch was empty. I'd wanted to tell him the tire was feeling better. Next time I'll carry a spare tube along with the patches, and maybe I'll pay a bit more attention when the bike starts feeling vague, instead of blaming the road.