Humbling

Bicycles are one of the good things. They're vehicles you can ride long distances in heavy city traffic and then just pick up and carry into your house, apartment or room. They save money, provide free exercise, and can be as safe as any other mode of transport when ridden with care.
The Complete and Total Loser has used bikes on and off, mostly on, as his primary means of transportation in cities since the early 1980s. He doesn't credit bikes with keeping him slim, but they're part of why he is and tries to remain so. 
As good as bikes are, however, they are still too easily felled by flat tires and no matter how good your tire is or durable its Kevlar bead, the right angle and amount of force will still work its way to an inner tube and turn your elegant machine into twenty pounds of inert junk. 
The Loser researches tires every year or so, waiting to see if any progress has been made. When he sees anything that looks good, further reading leads to the real reasons it isn't. 
The Loser patches his own tires, of course. Easy to learn but no matter how careful you are things go wrong and you have to do it all over again.
The photo here is of the piece of metal that gave him his most recent flat. Tiny, isn't it?

Small, but it cost the Loser a lot of time.