Bicycle Woes

Bikes in Tillicum are no surprise. This is a very common mode of transportation (it’s cheap)... That’s the way we like things in Tillicum. We make do with what we’ve got. If we can’t afford the best - we do what we can... A perfect example: I was walking in Tillicum one day when I heard the booming sounds of a stereo system coming up from behind me. This was no surprise other than this one had a very distinct sound that I couldn’t quite place. I turned and saw a man, riding his bike, pulling a trailer which was carrying an old-school boombox... Tillicum-style. We do what we can. We once coined the phrase “Only in Tillicum”... 

I say that phrase often.

For the most part - you are pretty safe to ride your bike around town (just don’t leave it sitting around without a lock, someone might take it and spray paint it yellow... so says the local officer. “This bike isn’t yours!” They’ll say, “See... this one’s YELLOW.”)

However, once you leave town it’s game on. No one wants to share the road and you get to make the one mile-(ish) trek up the interstate to the next exit in order to get into Lakewood ‘proper’. This is always a little adventure. Sometimes exhilarating and others exhausting - more recently the latter than the former. Just two weeks ago I spent the better part of my morning walking my bike off the interstate and towards the nearest bus stop when I popped a tire in the multiple piles of debris on the shoulder of the highway. That will teach me to travel without a spare. Although it would have been just as exhausting to change it while the semis travel past at 60-70 miles an hour... 

Why do I tell this story? Because I have a flat. AGAIN. At least this one was a slow leak and I made it to work just fine.... but that makes four. F.O.U.R! in a matter of three months... Exasperating...