Bicycle repair

It's not any fun to have a bike you can't ride. I was sick of envying the little kids across the parking lot riding around on their trikes and training wheels, so I pulled my bike out of the storage area and replaced the inner tubes. They've been flat since I moved the bike from Minneapolis nigh on two years ago. I tried to patch the tubes last summer, but they just laughed at me. "Fool! Do you think you can stop us with a $1.99 bottle of rubber cement!" So new inner tubes for me. I actually bought the new tubes last summer too, but I ran out of time to actually put them in. I think the thought of taking off the rear wheel was too daunting--I hate messing with the chain. It's not that I mind getting full of grease--it just takes me a lot of time and frustration to get it back where it's supposed to go.

My cheap Target bike (cost me $20 after the clearance markdown and my discount!) has some cheap nuts (file under "Sounds Dirty But Isn't). Next time I'm in a hardware store I'll have to pick up some that don't melt in the sun. But I was able to ride it around today.

In case anyone reading this knows anything about bikes, should I be worried that I put the tires on backward? The arrows in the tread now point to the back of the bike rather than the front.