Can you change a rear flat?

[GLC1968]

Does anybody remember how we lived without the internet?

I did take a short class, but my bike repair skills would not have developed without TE, Sheldon Brown, and a couple of people on Youtube.

No kidding.

Without the internet, I never would have met my husband, found our last three homes or successfully helped our goat through a delivery gone wrong in 2009. Oh, and I'd probably have long since given up on biking because I wouldn't have known that I didn't have to HATE my saddle without TE!

[sfa]

I'm one of those cursed by fate to only get flats in my rear tire. Usually while riding fully loaded on tour in the middle of nowhere (seriously, it's been years since I've gotten a flat--last one I had to change was while touring). Changing the rear tire is messier than the front, and slower, but not really any more difficult.

I keep a few baby wipes in a ziplock baggie on my bike at all times for when I end up covered in grease.

Cars are a different matter entirely. I know how to change flats on them in theory, but never in practice. The only time I was alone with a flat was on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the middle of the night while five months pregnant. I got out and started the process and could not get the lug nuts to loosen. At all. I had just had new tires put on the day before and they tightened those lug nuts down with such force that even the service I called for help couldn't loosen them. Ended up getting towed back to their shop, they got the tire off there and discovered that the spare in the car was for a Ford. I was driving a Toyota. So they had to break into the tire store attached to their shop (actually they called the owner who came over to open up) to get me a new tire that fit. Turns out that when we last drove with the spare, we took the car in to get a new tire and the mechanic ended up putting someone else's spare in our trunk (so somewhere was a Ford with a Toyota spare).

That was a rear tire and it was MUCH harder to change than any front flats I've gotten.

[Biciclista]

well, actually, I can change the tires of my car (if i can move those #$%#$% over tightened lug nuts) and have done it myself.

and with bikes, what I excel in is finding holes in tubes. I'm going to be 60 this year and if i don't feel like dealing with tight dirty tires/wheels I don't have to. Further, if my DH is not available, I am less than 5 miles from 3 bike shops, an easy bus ride to two of them. I can afford to pay someone else to fix my flat tire.

I am pleased to see all the women here that CAN do this, but honestly, I proved my womanhood and independence in a thousand other ways. My hands don't need the abuse.