Flat tires suck
Flat tires suck.
I took my child to get a flu shot the other day (not a great experience!). On the way out, we had to hop a curb because there were no curb cutouts nearby. My child went off the curb and then said "Daddy, there's a problem." I looked back, and indeed, the rear wheel was completely flat. That's some insult-to-injury type stuff right there. It was kind of funny though. Luckily, I usually carry a tool kit with a patch kit and a pump with me, so I was able to fix it pretty quickly.
On flats in general
I don't know if it's just Oakland and Berkeley streets, but two friends have gotten flat tires recently on their cargo e-bikes. I saw one of them on the sidewalk on the way to school pickup. He was walking with the bike and kid on the back. He had already called his partner to pick them up. Luckily, I was riding with another friend, who happened to have the same bike. He had just picked up spare 20" tubes for their Tern GSD. What great luck. They had a flat on the front, and were able to stand the bike up vertically to fix the flat. For the other incident, my friend had to walk to the nearest bike shop to get a new tube. Luckily they were open and it was not too far away.
This all reminded me of something. When our child was younger, we'd take the bike trailer/jogging stroller to get exercise or go for a walk or errand. We'd get flat tires often. I don't know if the trailer had bad tires or what. I purchased and installed some tire liners (Rhinodillos in this case) and never had a flat after that. I figure that for e-bikes, tire liners make a lot of sense. The added weight of the liner is negligible compared to the weight of the entire bike and the motor's power. The slightly harsher ride (noticeable with the stroller) is offset by a suspension and larger tire volume.
Ice cream (or Frozen yogurt) makes it all better
In any case, we got frozen yogurt later and that made everything better. The shop let us bring our bikes inside, which is a nice perk that wasn't as possible in pre-COVID times.
