The tire is flat? No problem!

If you love your bike, you push it. Every cyclist who has had a flat tire on the road and unfortunately didn't have anything useful with him to temporarily mend the tire has probably heard this saying. This is particularly annoying when cycling in nature, for which forest and field paths away from towns are often chosen. In the event of a breakdown, you are unfortunately pretty much on your own.

Not a bike shop far and wide that might even have offered a tube vending machine outside of opening hours, as is common in many cities. Only a few cows look across from the pasture, and then it promptly begins to rain. You could keep hopping with a hole in the tube, but that would definitely ruin the rim. So kilometer after kilometer is pushed.

Bicycle tours are a fine thing as long as everything is running smoothly. The most common cause of breakdowns on bike tours is actually a hole in the inner tube. The second most common is broken chains. The third concerns e-bikes: Their batteries die earlier than expected and the nearest charging station is far away. So what?

Word hasn't gotten around the country yet, but the breakdown service for cyclists is well organized in this country. Because not only the General German Bicycle Club has a mobile breakdown service for its members, but now even all automobile clubs. For example, the ACV (Automobil-Club Verkehr), AvD (Automobilclub von Deutschland) and ACE (Auto Club Europa) also help when their members' bicycles get left behind. However, this does not apply to rental bikes on holiday.

The ADAC now goes much further, with around 1,700 "Yellow Angels" and 5,000 emergency vehicles, the top dog in the breakdown business. Its 21 million members can call the nationwide breakdown service via app (you can see the location immediately) or mobile phone around the clock even if they or their underage children can no longer continue with the broken bike.

The ADAC doesn't care whether the bike is rented or your own, whether the breakdown happens on the way or at home. Incidentally, this breakdown service also includes pedelecs, cargo bikes, unicycles, tandem bikes, tricycles, recumbent bikes - even bicycle trailers, kick scooters and e-scooters.

Help is provided with problems with tires, chains, brakes or the battery. If a repair is not possible, the breakdown helpers organize transport to the nearest workshop, take luggage with them or drive cyclists to their accommodation. Since June 2022, 5,000 ADAC cyclists have called the breakdown service. The on-site repair success rate was over 95 percent.

A bicycle breakdown while traveling is no longer a problem. It would be even better if the breakdown services, whether for cyclists or drivers, cooperated with each other. Because everyone who gets stuck, as it is called in traffic German, is happy about help, no matter who it is.

But there is one restriction: If you break down in the middle of nowhere, you have to push your bike first, to the next public forest path, where the helper will be waiting.