My bike (apparently) had a flat tire, and pumping air into it didn’t seem to inflate it. Obviously there’s gotta be a puncture. So I took off the tire and removed the inner tube. This was a struggle; I rarely go biking and haven’t had to do any real maintenance before. I couldn’t find the hole by looking at it, and there wasn’t any more air escaping. So I filled the sink with water and held the inner tube under. No stream of bubbles from anywhere either.

So then I pumped some more air into the inner tube. It didn’t escape; the inner tube held its shape. I figured I must not have put the pump on the stem correctly when I inflated it, somehow, because as far as I could tell there wasn’t a hole anywhere in the tube.

I struggled for a bit and read a tutorial to reassemble the wheel, and started pumping it up again. Once again, there’s the audible hissing of air from the tire and the quick deflation. I’m baffled. But I removed the inner tube again. I guess if nothing else this has been a valuable learning experience?