On my first day back, I had a party to go to. Unlike most parties that happen in the evening, this one started at 9am. So, vowing to attend and not wanting to do so in a car, I hopped on the Vespa and attempted to ride the 30 or so miles to Montour Preserve.

After about two blocks, I hear this rumbling coming from my rear tire. Turns out that it’s my rear tire. Go figure.

I rode it back and checked it out. It was mostly out of air.

The soapy water trick worked and even blew a large bubble, just for fun!

A flat, eh? I remembered the night before, only a few hours after arriving home, something felt uneasy in the rear wheel. I assumed it was just in my head. But no. I must of gotten a tack in my tire at the Chinese Restaurant.

I was able to ride over 11,000 miles in 12 weeks without having any real problems. But the moment I get home, I catch a flat.

Luckily, or so I thought, I had a tire plug kit under my seat. I had never even used it. It was purchased for the trip, “just in case.” I was more than a little amused that the day after I get back… or really, the night I got back, I got a flat.

I wheeled it into the garage and plugged it, following the directions.

And in about five minutes, the tire was plugged, reinflated and ready to roll!

Now, what I should have done was tested it for leaks. Why I didn’t, I’m not sure. I just figured that I plugged it the right way. That was dumb of me.

But no matter. I headed out of town on PA 304 and then took County Line Road for about a mile until the balance began to switch. The ride, to pitch. And suddenly the tire started to unhitch. And just then the bitch, to satisfy an itch, left be stranded by the roadside thumbing for a hitch.¹

Yep. The tire went flat and the plug was gone. Since the tire was now off the bead, there was no way to replug it and inflate it with the little bike pump I always carry.

Now, if I could digress into explaining how this wouldn’t happen if I had just stayed with vintage. When I rode the vintage Vespas, I always carried a tire patch kit. But since the tires were tubed and had split rims AND were easy to take off, I could remove the tire, split the rim, throw on a new tube (I always carried extras) and ride away.

This was not the case.

I had to call for a tow. For a flat. This was lame. Even if I could somehow carry a spare, changing it is such an amazingly huge and clumsy ordeal that it would be nearly impossible (or completely impossible in my case – as I’d find out later).

The tow company said that they would be there in a couple of hours. And with time to kill, I checked out the cemetery that was my host on this lovely summer day.

Many of the graves were of children. In fact, there was an entire family buried there. They had three kids, none of them lived past the age of three.

Only one Civil War soldier was buried here. He died in 1861 in Washington DC, but I couldn’t read how or why because the stone was so deteriorated.

Though the cemetery was well carried for, I did a little maintenance myself, putting a vase upright here, weeding a bit there, righting a headstone or two. What else was I going to do to keep busy?

Well, finally the tow truck arrived and we loaded up the scooter. I’ve never seen how they did this before now and I was pretty impressed. He strapped the front wheel to this little cart thing and the cart to a winch and it pulled the scooter up the flat bed.

I was only five miles from home. I could practically see the house from here. This was frustrating.

I was more than a little amused at how the night I finished an 11,000 mile cross-country ride, taking horrible dirt roads, parking in hundreds of parking lots, even being swept off the road into a ditch during a Missouri rain storm. I never needed a tow. I never caught a flat. The ride, more or less, was 11,000 uneventful miles. And then literally 20 miles after returning home, unpacking my gear, I pick up a nail or a tack in the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant. Over night the tire went flat, I tried to fix it the same way I would have tried to fix it on the road and now it was off the rim and on the back of a roll back tow truck.

None of this made a whole lot of sense. It was like I was supposed to break down. I was overdue, but something held it off until the day after my trip, when I was a mere five miles from home. Yes, thank you. I should be thankful. Sort of hard to be, of course. But at least I know I should be.

And the state of affairs now is that a plate that goes over the wheel is somehow stuck on and though I’ve tried, I cannot remove it (and thus cannot remove the wheel). I’ve changed tires a few times before. This has never been the case. They’re tough to remove, but not impossible. I’ll tackle it again today.

Here’s a write up, with pictures on how to change a tire on a modern Vespa. This, like many modern car/motorcycle/scooter things, is far more complicated than need be.

This whole ordeal threw off my day by a good four hours. AND I had to take my car everywhere I went. It reminded me again of how much I really dislike driving. The entire time I longed to be on two wheels.

So if I can remove this plate thing (which I am pretty sure I can), I’ll have to take it to Mechanicsburg and get the tire replaced. Thankfully, they’re open on Mondays.

I’m sure I’ll follow up on this before too long.

1. Sorry about this, but I couldn’t resist. [↩]