Patch Party

After my flat tire disappointments the last two weekends, I decided it was time to take action. So this evening, I spent some time at the kitchen table with a couple of patch kits and a pile of tire tubes.

I don’t mind patching tubes, it’s easy enough to do. And I don’t mind riding on them, either. I have in the past ridden on tubes with as many as four patches, and that held together fine. Some biking acquaintances tell me they’ve put on even more — one guy said he was happy riding on a tube with a dozen patches.

It turns out I’ve been slipping in my repair routines. I had several tubes in boxes — not their original boxes — stacked in a cabinet in the garage. I’d marked the condition of the tube on each box, so I was able to grab a new tube to replace the one that flatted on me Sunday. But I like to keep a stock of patched tubes handy. Several of the boxes indicated that their tubes needed patches. Wonder why I didn’t attend to that some time ago?

I carefully examined each tube by eyeball — then inflated them and took them over to the kitchen sink, which I had filled with water. One by one, I submerged the tubes to find the telltale trail of air bubbles that indicated a leak. Some of the leaks were so tiny, they were hard to see — even after the bubbles told me where to look. That’s what happened with the tube I used Sunday. I patched one puncture, but missed another one altogether.

I hope my efforts have paid off. I’ve got a new tube in the tire of my bike, and a freshly patched tube in the seat bag, ready for use in the future if I need it. And in that cabinet, three other patched tubes in their boxes — labeled “OK.” I hope they stay that way.

New Derailleur – Old Tire Trouble

Thanks to the generosity of Bike Noob reader Mel Hughes, I’ve got a new Shimano Ultegra rear derailleur on the bike. He shipped it out earlier this week, and my super local bike mechanic, David V., installed it Friday. I had a good Saturday morning ride with it, made better by an unplanned meetup with David D., or “my friend David” as Bike Noob readers know him.

One of the local hills I like to climb in the neighborhood has the colorful name, “Convict Hill.” Recently, I started timing my climb up it. (No, I won’t become a Stravaphile — I don’t use Strava. An old-fashioned stop watch works just fine.) Anyhow, the first time I put a watch on it, I clocked two minutes, 43 seconds. As I gradually improved, my target became 2:30, which I almost hit two weeks ago, with a 2:32. On Saturday, it was 2:27! It must be the new derailleur, right?

Because it’s a long cage derailleur, David V. warned that it might not shift as smoothly as I’ve been used to. “It’s really for a triple,” he said. And I did encounter some minor issues, like skipping between shifts. But a quarter turn of the adjustment barrel fixed that. I was looking forward to the Sunday morning club ride.

The club ride promised to be a small affair. Sunday was the day of the Livestrong Ride in Austin, and most of the club turned out for that — with several riders going for their first century. I posted on our Yahoo group that I’d be up for a ride to Creedmoor, if anyone was interested in joining me. Six others were — and they were all A riders. This was going to be interesting.

I stuck with them, courtesy of a few well-placed stoplights, for about 10 miles. At one point, we came across all the Livestrong riders as we tried to cross a city street that was part of the route. The traffic cop on the corner refused to let anyone cross the street, but he said we were welcome to turn onto the same route as Livestrong, then make a left turn at the first cross street. We did, and avoided getting caught up in the large peloton.

After our little group crossed Interstate 35 and headed for the country, the As took off. I was suddenly on my own, but had more to worry about than not keeping up with the group. My rear tire felt funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny hmmmm. I turned into the driveway of a closed dance hall and checked my tire. It wasn’t quite flat, but well on its way.

This was a problem. When I flatted last week on a borrowed bike, I made sure to put a fresh new tube in its seatbag. But that left me with suspicious old tubes for my bag. I decided not to trust the replacement tube I brought, but instead, took out my patch kit and set to work.

Patching is an easy process, but takes more time than replacing the tube. I got ‘er done, and figured I’d save time by using a CO2 cartridge to fill the tire instead of my trusty frame pump. I’ve had bad luck through the years with cartridges. They invariably misfire. Or I misfire them. Sure enough, that happened here, too. I turned to the pump.

It took some effort, but I got the tire pumped up to an acceptable pressure, and set off again. I was headed for the convenience store in Creedmoor, where I could assess my situation. Only one dog chased me on the road to Creedmoor, but it was a particularly nasty Chihuahua (ever notice how aggressive those little guys are?) and I was glad to get by him. At the store, I took a large gulp from my water bottle, then felt the tire. It was soft.

Okay, pump it up again and set out on a return trip, rather than the loop I had planned. I had a nice tailwind behind me, and made good time to I-35 again, when I stopped at another convenience store. Sure enough, the tire had gone soft.

I threw in the towel. I could have pumped it again, then stopped to pump again in another five miles, and hope I would get home. Or, I could risk the dicey replacement tube. Or — and this is what I did — I could call my domestique to sag for me.

It’s good to be on the bike again. I like my new derailleur. But why I’m having this run of flats baffles me. I’ll let it sit for a couple of days, and then try again.

Back on the Bike — Sort Of

I thought I was out of the woods. After my derailleur hanger blew up last weekend, our club mechanic took a quick look at it and told me to order a new one from derailleurhanger.com. I did. They sent it out midweek, and the other day, I installed it on the bike.

So far, so good. It’s a simple job of screwing the new hanger in place. If you order the correct model, there’s no problem.

But when I tried to mount the derailleur to the hanger — problem.

What neither I nor the bike mechanic noticed was the extent of damage to the derailleur itself. I was less shocked to see the broken arm than I was to see that a large chunk of the jockey wheel was gone. I’m not sure if that happened when the hanger broke, or if it had been wearing away stealthily for a long time.

I hauled the bike back to the mechanic, and asked him to find a replacement and give me a call when everything was shipshape. He figured he could find one locally, and that it would cost about $100. Ouch.

But one of the benefits of being a semi-famous biking blogger surfaced the very next morning, when one of my readers emailed me to tell me he had a spare derailleur in his parts box. (I gotta get a parts box going myself.) Not only that, but he was generous enough to offer it to me gratis. I jumped at the offer. Maybe, by this time next week, I’ll be back on my own velocipede.

In the meantime, I still had to get some riding in. Saturday morning, my wife wanted to do her long ride of the week, and I took the mountain bike down from the hooks in the garage, pumped up the tires, and joined her. It’s not in the greatest shape, but it goes all right, if I can ever get used to the way the front suspension dives when I put on the brakes. I feel like I’m going to launch myself over the bars sometimes when I stop quickly.

That’s okay. On the return leg of our ride, I found myself behind two young lovelies at the stoplight just before HEB Hill. Now, this isn’t a steep hill, but it’s long enough to be a tester. I recalled being passed by mountain bikes going up the hill, and felt cocky enough to think that I might be the mountain bike doing the passing this time.

The light turned green. The young women pushed off slower than I expected, given the fact that they were a lot slimmer than I, and were on some decent road bikes — a Scott and a Bianchi. I stayed on their wheels up the hill, past the entrance to the supermarket parking lot, when I saw that I probably could pass them. But I didn’t. You’ve gotta know you’re racing to be in a race, right? They were chatting with each other while pedaling easily up the grade. I could feel myself starting to push hard just to stay with them. At the top of the hill, I crossed over to the left turn lane, and while doing so, drew even with them. They glanced my way, then kept on at their steady pace. No reason for them to care about another old fart on a bike, right?

It’s good that I have the mountain bike as a backup if I need it, but I prefer my road bike. That afternoon, I visited my friends Rick and Penny to once again borrow Rick’s titanium Airborne — the same one I had used several months ago. “The rear tire has a lot of miles on it,” Rick said. “You’ll want to keep an eye on it.” No big deal, and I was glad to have the option to ride a decent bike.

It rained Sunday morning, canceling our regular 8 a.m. club ride. But the skies cleared rapidly, and in another hour, the club president was posting a 10 a.m. start for those who didn’t mind riding on wet streets. I was among the first to show up.

The sun was shining brightly, but the streets weren’t drying as fast as they might have if the humidity hadn’t remained so high. We planned to head south to Buda, then across Interstate 35 into a rural area before heading back — perhaps 50 miles or so. As we pulled onto the bike lane along the major thoroughfare that runs past the coffee shop where we start our rides, I could see that the usual grit and gunk was heavy on the road surface after the rain. I made sure to keep the bike’s wheels pointed away from the trouble as we turned east.

But it was bound to happen. Pffffstt! I heard. “Flat!” I shouted, as I braked to a stop. The peloton zoomed ahead, but one rider, Rob, stopped along with me.

I was grateful that he did. Not because I can’t fix a flat — it’s one of the few bike maintenance tasks I can handle competently — but because my seatbag with the spare tube and the tire levers, along with my pump, was still on my own bike, which is ensconced in the bike mechanic’s garage. Rob gave me his spare tube, and the use of the mini-pump he carries. By the time things were back to normal, he was well behind the group.

“I’ll pedal like crazy and see if I can catch them,” he said. “If I can’t, well, I’ll have a nice ride of my own.”

He took off. I turned back the way I had come. It was just prudent to head home, rather than risk another flat. Anyway, I got a new personal best out of it — at about five miles, it’s the shortest club ride I’ve ever ridden.

Riding My Age

It’s an article of faith for every cyclist: On your birthday, you have to ride your age. (I don’t know how my friends north of the Red River of Texas manage that during winter months — I recall that snow was usually on the ground for my March 4th birthday before I moved down here.)

So, I warned the club after last week’s B ride that I would be doing a birthday ride today, and that everyone was welcome to join. Well, the A riders had their route all mapped out — a variation of one of our popular rides that included some roads we seldom use on our club rides. The B riders decided to tackle some rollers nearby. No one was enthusiastic about attempting 61 miles, so it looked like I would be left on my own.

Then I heard from Bike Noob reader Dan Colvin. He and I had exchanged emails several times over the past few months. It turns out that he discovered Bike Noob and, like some others out there, decided to read backwards through the entire blog — four years’ worth of posts. If nothing else, he should get some kind of medal for that. But Dan was commenting this time on the recent post about favorite websites, and noted that while he’s still trying to figure out his riding style, the idea of going longer distances without trying to set new speed records appealed to him. I suggested if he wanted to get in more miles, he should come along with me. And he did!

We left Starbucks a little before the advertised 8:15 departure time, bundled up against the 48-degree (9C) chill. The morning was glorious — clear, sunny, and very little wind. We made our way east along city streets, then turned south. The pace was comfortable, about 15 mph. We didn’t chat much — the traffic was too heavy to ride side-by-side.

We made it through Buda, then Kyle. Seven miles south of Kyle, Old Stagecoach Road comes to Five-Mile Dam Park, a nice county park on the north edge of San Marcos. We could have gone a little farther, and reached the apartment ghetto for students at nearby Texas State University (Where I am on the faculty), but I opted to turn around at the park. Distance-wise, we’d be fine.

Dan rides past the soccer fields at 5-Mile Dam Park.

But on the return leg, Dan sensed a problem. He stopped to check his rear tire. “I thought I felt something,” he said, but the tire seemed all right. Several miles later, he said we’d have to stop so he could change his tube. The tire was going down. We stopped. He’s one of those 10-minute tire change guys, so we were almost ready to roll in a short time. But his mini pump wasn’t cooperating. He couldn’t get enough pressure in the tire. I lent him my Topeak Road Morph (the best mini pump going!) and we took turns trying to get the tire pumped up to where it should be. Finally, it showed 7 bar on the tiny pressure gauge. We were rolling again.

Making short work of a flat.

By now, the temperature was rising nicely. The chilly temps we had begun the ride with had morphed into nearly summer-like conditions. Dan had shed his vest and arm warmers on the downleg, and I had taken the sleeves off my windbreaker, but now I was uncomfortable. We stopped between Buda and Austin so I could get rid of the wind vest and my leg warmers. It was now about 65 degrees (18C).

The Bike Noob stops to shed some layers.

The final miles to our starting point were uneventful. Even the traffic was less than usual — a dicey left turn off a busy road into a neighborhood went off without a hitch, because we had no cars bearing down from behind, and nothing oncoming — really unusual for that intersection. We made it back at about 12:30, and I think we both had miles left in us (although Dan had done 70 miles the previous day, so I’m not entirely sure).

It turned out I needed those miles. Our little round trip jaunt gave us 58.1, according to my cyclocomputer. That left me three miles short of riding my age. Dan and I said our goodbyes, and I headed home — but took the long way around to rack up those missing three miles. Total for the day: 61.4. Happy birthday to me.

Comedy of (Mechanical) Errors

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel finds that sometimes, rides just don’t go as they’re planned.

Just as in life, some days on the bike go smoothly…while others make you wish you had just stayed home. Proof? I offer a glimpse into today’s ride…or as I’m calling it, the comedy of mechanical errors.

7:45

Text friends (or at least the short list of friends who also work from home and thus can ride on a weekday morning), see who’s ready to ride. One’s out, one’s not responding. Begin mindless wandering on Internet.

9:00

Still no response, so come up with a solo plan. Just for grins, I’m going to tackle several Strava segments in the area and see if I can post some ridiculously fast times so everyone will think I’m a cool cyclist. Haven’t heard of Strava? It’s a GPS-based, mileage-tracking app with a social-media component…but let’s face it, it’s really just a way for people to compare themselves to others and convince themselves they’re cool cyclists.

9:15

Finally leave the house, heading toward the downtown route favored by the local cycling club. Approach the first segment I’m targeting, bordering a local country club. Pop a caffeinated energy gel into my mouth and get ready to hammer. Instead, realize I have a flat and curse the loss of precious, Strava-busting momentum. That makes two flats in about three days in the same tire…or two more than I’ve gotten in about the entire last year.

9:29

Remove the tire, lay my bike on the grass, and begin my inspection. Yes, I know that guy on YouTube does this process in 45 seconds, but I’m actually trying to find out what caused the flat…not just have it repeated another couple miles down the road. After two minutes of tentative feeling around inside the tire (does anybody really want to discover the cause with their bare fingers?) I find a tiny piece of glass. It’s buried, so I spend the next several minutes trying to dig it out.

9:35

Overcome the revulsion I have about putting something in my mouth that has been produced in a factory and attempt to blow a little bit of air into the tube to give it some shape. Nothing’s happening. Un-strap my Lezyne mini pump (hey, like a Boy Scout I’m prepared), then spend the next several minutes in frustration trying to unscrew the air hose which is housed within the pump body for storage. Curse myself for not greasing the threads.

9:38

Finally pump a little air into the tube, then start wrestling with the tire. After thousands of miles it’s decided to snap itself back into a kinked, twisting figure eight that my frazzled brain simply cannot decipher. Nice elderly lady stops by to offer assistance…obviously she’s never seen an experienced cyclist change a tire before.

9:40

Grab CO2 cartridge and let ‘er rip, anxious to get on with my ride. The tube begins to fill, then quickly the gizmo fails, adding a few greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and causing me to whine like a baby about my now-frozen hands. No spare cartridge, so go back to the mini pump.

9:50

One thousand, three-hundred-and-twelve pumps later and I’m exhausted. My tire is just on the firmer side of mushy. I’m obsessed with this Strava thing so I soldier on, ignoring the fact that I’ll soon be passing through a little rougher side of town with no spare, no patch kit, and no other tough-looking guys in badass Lycra. Okay, I do ponder for a moment who I can call should I have another problem…and wonder how long my puny self and expensive road bike will sit unnoticed while said person comes to pick me up.

9:52

Start to roll once again and realize my tire is mush. Stop, un-strap pump once again, and pump another thousand times (give or take). Tire pressure is now maybe an optimistic 70-psi.

10:00

Once again get underway, but aft water bottle is jumping wildly with every pedal stroke. Inspect and discover the cadence magnet on my crank arm is now inexplicably colliding with the remounted mini pump, which in turn is springing the bottle in question. Pedal in weird, half-arcs until I find a park bench…where I proceed to stare at the situation with all the knowledge and experience of a guy who just took 30 minutes to change a single flat tire.

10:10

Give serious consideration to the theory that a crank arm that can handle all the force generated by a Tour de France winner just bent under the weight of a 16-pound bike frame sitting on a well-manicured fairway. Un-strap pump, put it in my jersey pocket, give up on being king of the GPS-tracking-app mountain, and head home, completing a whopping 16 miles…in 1 hour and 37 minutes.

I did finally solve the mystery, or at least the part of it that didn’t involve my own incompetence. The pump bracket has mounting slots, rather than boltholes. Though the bolts seemed tight, the bracket had somehow slid to the left…just enough to derail my best-laid plans.

Hmm…maybe those Strava guys did it.

“I Saw It on YouTube Once…”

Don Blount’s post about flats called to mind an experience I had a couple of weeks ago. In fact, it was at the same ride where I climbed the “big” hill. And it reminded me how important it is for bikers to acquire at least the basic minimum knowledge about bike maintenance.

I pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant where the ride would start. Although it was 8 a.m., the crowd was already pretty big, and I squeezed into a parking space between two other cars. As I got my bike out of the back and started attending to details like checking water bottles, making sure I brought my sunglasses, transferring money from my wallet to the ziploc bag I carry on rides, the woman at the car next to me started complaining.

“Augh! What is this?” she cried. “Am I going to be able to fix this?”

A guy who was with her looked on. He obviously couldn’t answer her question.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“It’s this,” she said. “The top of the valve came off. I’m not sure how to fix it.”

The presta valve on her rear tire had broken in two.

“No, you’ll have to put in a new tube,” I said. “Do you know how?”

“Oh, no!” she answered. “I don’t have a clue.” She looked at the guy, who apparently was her husband, or boyfriend, or something.

“I saw how to fix a flat on YouTube once,” he said. “But I don’t know if I could do it.”

Flats happen.

I took the tire. As I pulled out the old tube, I talked my way through the procedure, so they could see what I was doing. I’m not much of a bike mechanic, but I’ve fixed my share of flats.

She handed me a new tube from the trunk of her car. I blew into the valve to give some shape to the tube and fitted it inside the tire. I explained how to work around the tire to get the bead inside the wheel, while being mindful not to pinch the tube between the wheel and tire. The bead did something my tires rarely do: it popped into place easily.

I pumped about 30 pounds into the tire, then showed them how to check to make sure the tire is seated correctly, with no tube sticking through.

“I think you two can probably fill it the rest of the way,” I said, handing the tire and pump to the guy.

She thanked me profusely. I turned away to get on my shoes and helmet. The ride would start soon. The tire change had taken me about five minutes.

Changing a tire is simple, yet satisfying. If done right, you’re left with a tire that you can depend on through normal riding. If done faster than usual, you’re left with a sense of accomplishment — of improvement. So don’t be afraid to learn. It’s a necessary skill, and one all bikers should have. If you don’t know how, I did what the guy did — I looked it up on YouTube. Here you go:

‘Tis the Season For Flats

I always have figured flats can happen anytime. But for guest poster Don Blount, this is the busy season.

It is harvest season in the Lodi Appellation, which is the fancy name for the federally designated American Viticulture Area in this part of California’s Central Valley.

In 2010 that area produced some 546,000 tons of grapes. Winegrapes are the No. 2 cash crop here in San Joaquin County, trailing only milk if you were wondering. And you can find some 60 wineries in the area.

The vineyards look pretty, but flats lurk here.

So what does any of this have to do with biking?

Well, I ride my bike in that area a lot as it has roads conducive to cycling most of the time. But when grape harvest begins, so does flat tire season. I was out for a ride recently not having experienced a flat in about six months and I had two flats during the same 25-mile ride. The first flat happened about five miles into the ride and was caused by a long piece of metal that stuck in the rear tire. I was up and running again in less than 10 minutes.

The second flat was noticeable about a half mile from home. It was caused by a sticker that I picked up somewhere along the way. The tire was soft but not completely flat so I was able to nurse it home. I changed the tube later that night and patched it along with three others I had in my garage.

During the harvest all types of debris gets moved out of the fields and onto the road including goatheads, thorns, pieces of metal and all types of other crap. It was during the 2010 harvest season that during one group ride we had roughly a dozen.

I like grapes, I like wine, but I do not like flats.

The dreaded harvest equipment.

There are certain roads I will avoid if I see a lot of harvesting equipment in that area. But it is inevitable that flats will happen.

Still, I do what I can to minimize the number I get. Itry make sure my tires are in good condition, I check them after every ride, wiping them down with a wet cloth and looking for any cuts or things sticking in the tire. There have been times I have found something poking in the tire that has not reached the tube but would have eventually caused a flat if it was not removed.

And when riding, I carry along two spare tubes, three C02 cartridges and a pump. If I don’t use them, I may be able to help someone in need. I would rather carry a little extra weight and be overly cautious rather than stuck on the side of the road because of a flat.

Fixing Flats Faster

I’ve always considered myself to be pretty competent when it comes to fixing flats. I’ve had enough of them that, while they will be forever a pain in the patootie, they don’t ruin my ride like they might have done several years ago.

But my confidence in my flat fixing ability was challenged earlier this month, when I had a spate of them within a relatively short time. I had three flats in two weeks. It turns out that my rear tire had worn so badly, the cords showed through in two places.

What vexes me is this: I take too long to fix flat tires.

I think I go about it just as most other folks would. I shift into the smallest cog and the smallest chainring, then take off the wheel. My seatbag contains three tire levers, and I usually need only two to get the tire out of the rim. I’ll pull the tube out, keeping the other side of the tire inside the rim, then I feel around inside the tire to see if I can find any bits of glass or metal or whatever that might have caused the flat.

I take the replacement tube from the seatbag, and blow a little air into the valve to give the tube a little shape, then fit it inside the tire. Once I’ve got the tube inside, it’s time to grab the part of the tire that’s outside the rim and pop it back in. As always, I have a little trouble getting the last three inches of the tire over the rim, so sometimes I’ll use one of the tire levers to help with that (Yes, I know — could cause a puncture in the tube). Pump up the tire, put it back on the bike, clean up after myself, and I’m off.

I can do this in five minutes. Well, I have done it in five minutes maybe once. More often, it takes 15 minutes. But when I had the flats this past month, I noticed it took me a full half hour to get underway again.

What gives?

I can’t pinpoint the exact cause of my slowness. But two weekends ago I realized that tire changing was not being done as efficiently as in the past. Whatever the cause, I have to get quicker at the whole roadside repair routine, so I can get moving again quicker.

I suppose I could practice, and build my speed that way. Have you ever practiced fixing flats? (Okay, when I started biking seriously a few years ago, I really did practice it — but only once, and never since.) But really, I’d rather wait until faced with the real thing before I dirty my hands doing that chore.

So, readers — I’m asking for help. What kind of techniques do you use to fix a flat quickly and get out on the road where we wanted to be in the first place. What’s the best part of the routine to cut the amount of time I would spend getting the tire changed?

The Most Important Thing: Steve Martin

Steve Martin

 

Bike Noob is happy to feature the first in our series of guest posts, “The Most Important Thing.” Our first author is Steve Martin, a relatively new biker from northern Virginia. Steve, a retired military officer and current civil servant, also writes his own blog, There and Back Again.

Last Spring, I returned to the cycling hobby I dabbled in over 15 years ago. Needless to say, there were a great many things I have learned in the past year. If Mr. Niekamp is “The Bike Noob,” then I must be something on the order of “The Bike Incompetent.” Fortunately, I get to pick the name of my own blog and I have taken it in a different direction.

While I am nowhere near an expert on most bicycling subjects, there is one particular area I feel qualified to speak on: flat tires. Many people go months at a time without flatting. Some lucky souls go years at a time. I have managed to get NINE flats in my first 12 months of cycling, seven of those flats in the hell that was June to August, 2010. Each flat was a different lesson.

So I’ve learned a few things about flat tires in the past year, mostly through a series of unfortunate mistakes on my part. I humbly offer these tire-related tips in the hope that others may not need to learn these lessons like I did – the hard way.

1. Don’t skimp on tires. In my view, they’re the most important and potentially the most-easily damaged piece of gear on your bike. A good set of tires will not only help you avoid learning how to change a flat on a hot dusty road, but they will let you ride faster. Spend some extra money on puncture resistant tires and you’ll more than make up the difference in the money saved on spare tubes, repair kits, and the dramatic decrease in frustration.

2. Pump your tires before every ride. I check my car’s tire pressure once every Blue Moon. Do that with your bike and you will suffer. It’s a small thing, but make sure your tires are properly inflated before every ride.

3. Inspect your tires before every ride. Run your hand along their entire length and visually inspect them for bits of glass, nails, staples, etc… that are slowly working their way toward your beloved inner tube. Remove as necessary.

4. Don’t underinflate your tires. Especially if you’re a Clydesdale like Yours Truly. Low pressure invites a “pinch flat,” which is a nasty event because pinch flats almost always immediately lose pressure. There is no “limping home” with a pinch flat, which occurs when the tube is pinched against the rims, usually during a jarring bump, and two holes result.

5. Don’t overinflate your tires.

Remnants of an overinflated innertube explosion

In an effort to avoid a pinch flat and improve rolling resistance, you may be tempted to do this. Don’t. Your tube will explode and the resulting noise will sound very similar to a shotgun blast. When this echoes down the street, concerned neighbors will rush to their fences to see what happened and you will be considerably embarrassed. Trust me on this.

6. Always carry a spare tube and a pump. This almost goes without saying, except I must say that I have violated this rule more than once and flatted while doing so on two occasions. I believe the odds of getting a flat dramatically when you don’t have one or both of these items. Why this occurs is one of Life’s mysteries, but if my experiences are normal then it is an undeniable Truth.

Twisted tire due to turning inside-out

7. Don’t flip your tire inside out. When changing a flat, you may be tempted to flip your tire inside out (and can’t think of a good reason for this right now, but when I was fighting with my tire in 90 degree heat, it seemed like a good idea at the time). Many tires have kevlar beads that hold them in place. If you turn your tire inside out, you will find that the bead twists and cannot easily be returned to its original state. This will cause your tire to be hopelessly askew after you mount it on the wheel. See the attached photo as evidence.

8. Mount your tire so that the valve stem is next to a recognizable part of your tire.

Valve stem over the Bontrager "r"

This way, you can quickly compare a hole in your inner tube to a specific part of the tire and thus identify an foreign objects that are causing punctures.

9. Practice changing tires in the comfort of your own home. Practice makes perfect, or at least it makes you less of a klutz than you would be without it. Put on some nice music, grab a cold beverage of your choice and give it a shot. This is infinitely preferable to learning on the side of a highway in sweltering heat.

10. Consider a CO2 cartridge. Tube-mounted pumps will get the job done, but the last 30 PSI will wear you out. A CO2 cartridge takes seconds. They’re small and easy to store in a saddle bag or jersey pocket. They aren’t necessarily the most intuitive thing you will ever use, so if you decide to go with these, refer to Tip #8.

If you would like to join Steve with a guest post on this blog, write one on the topic: What’s the Most Important thing you’ve learned about cycling? Details available here.

What’s the Longest You’ve Gone Without a Flat?

Not Darryl.

My friend Darryl over at Lovingthebike just had a flat tire the other day.  The remarkable thing about that is, he says it was his first flat in two years!  He thinks the last flat he had was prior to November, 2008.

I don’t have flats at the rate I used to, but I still have several each year.  My most recent one was in late December, which prompted me to buy a new set of tires (no flats on those yet – knock wood).  So I’m a lousy candidate for the long-run-between-flats club.

But maybe you’ve had a different experience.  Can you beat Darryl’s 27-month record of no flats?  Tell us about it.

And more importantly, tell us why you think you managed to go so long.  Was it dumb luck?  Are you really good at steering your bike away from grungy gorp on the road? Do you use better equipment than the rest of us?  Maybe we can all get some pointers that will help us make 2011 the Year of No Flats.