I have some priceless words of wisdom to share with my readers. Are you all sitting down? Do I have your undivided attention? Are you prepared the take notes? Ok, here goes; riding a bicycle with a flat tire is not a good idea. Wow!! A revelation!
Yes, I speak from firsthand experience. Just today I endured the “riding a flat tired and rattling gears” bike experience, and I have the sore hamstrings (and butt) to show for it. I love my bike, and yet I treat it shabbily 
Lately it’s been in need of some serious TLC. So when I took it out for a ride over the Labor Day weekend and noticed the flat front tire, I concluded “Okay. Maintenance time!”.
The bike shop is about a mile away from my house. I decided to ride it over there and I must say it was rather unpleasant. The tire was so flat I was basically riding on the rim, made even worse because the route is full of right turns then left turns, uphill then downhill. Northeast Queens is not a flat area topographically. So I rode along, with my iPod turned up loud, forcing the gears, getting no leverage, beating the crap out of the poor thing. I evaded some potential collisions with pedestrians on Northern Boulevard, and then, in some kind of karmic retribution, almost got cut off by a skateboarder! I swerved, I weaved, and then my house keys fell out of my pocket. So I had to stop and pick them up. Generally, the whole escapade was perilous and ill-advised. I really should be locked up. I’m a menace to society 
But I made it to the bike shop alive and uninjured. My bike is now in the trusty hands of the repair guys on 235th Street. They assured me it will be in tuned-up, tip top shape by the weekend. Yay!
Bicycle Wheel by Marcel Duchamp, 1951:
