Last weekend, I flatted on my Saturday morning ride. I was only two miles from home, and was too worn out to change the flat then and there, so I called my wife and had her perform sag duties.
That evening, in the cool of my kitchen, I pulled out the tube and replaced it. The replacement tube had two patches, but they looked pretty sturdy. I generally will patch my flatted tubes and reuse them, so doing this again wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for me.
Sunday morning, I went out to the garage 20 minutes before the club ride was due to begin, and to my horror, found that the tire had gone flat overnight. Yikes! I pulled the wheel from the bike and hauled my tire levers and floor pump into the kitchen again. Then, I grabbed a new tube that was still in its box, fresh from the bike shop.
I scrambled to get the tube replaced and the tire remounted on the wheel. Everything seemed okay, so I quickly filled my water bottles and dashed to the coffee shop to meet the club ride. I got there within five minutes of the start — a record time for me at replacing a flat tire.
Then I proceeded to worry throughout the ride that I had been too hasty, and that the new tube might not be seated correctly, or any of a dozen other things that could cause me to flat again. But the tire performed well, and caused me no problems.
Obviously, I had missed a leak in the repaired tube — the one with two patches. There should have been a third one in there. The question is, when do you patch tubes and when do you replace them?
I’ve got four older tubes hanging from the wall in my garage right now. Each has one patch. Each would be called upon as a replacement tube if I get a flat (although since I’m running a new tube in the tire now, I would probably just go ahead and patch it, and remount it).
But is that a wise policy? Are patched tubes less durable somehow than new tubes? How many patches can you put on a tube and still have it give good service? How do you deal with the question?
Bike fitting is part art, part science. Traditional fitting involves static measurements and some basic tools, like a plumb bob and ruler. My local shop sized me for my bike; later, another shop graciously fine-tuned things like cleat and seat position. Still, I never felt completely dialed in. Some of my issues may have been due to past injuries, including an ACL reconstruction and herniated disc. Others, however, were just my obsessive-compulsive wonderings, like why I never felt comfortable riding in the drops, or why my left leg often brushed the top tube. Eventually I went looking for an advanced bike fit. After all, even the priciest bike is no good if the owner doesn’t feel comfortable riding it.
Hemmel, wired.
Paul Williams with the Zin.
I’m somewhat obsessive about fit and comfort, so it was no surprise that I was ready to ditch the stock Bontrager saddle that came with my Trek 2.1. I briefly tried the comfy Terry Liberator from my hybrid, but quickly found it too big and cushy for my road bike. One of the Specialized Body Geometry models followed, before I settled on the Bontrager inForm RL that has topped my seat post for the last four months, or about 2000 miles.
Some saddles try to address the latter problem with cutouts, but according to Bontrager, that simply focuses pressure on specific areas, and may actually increase symptoms, rather than alleviate them. Bontrager uses two different densities of foam in the inForm saddle to increase comfort, a stiffer foam in areas that support the skeletal structure, and a softer foam in areas that come into contact with soft tissues. With this method, and each size of saddle’s unique curvature, the company claims to support the skeletal structure properly, distributing the pressure evenly over soft tissue areas, rather than concentrating it in specific spots.
Saddles are one of those personal preference things, but I quickly discovered I liked the more rounded curves of the inForm. Previously I had been trying a Specialized Avatar Gel, which I found too flat for my taste. The Specialized’s cutout seemed to keep away any numbness, but I developed some weird back pain. That went away with the inForm RL. There is a short break-in period, but after that, I found the saddle relatively comfortable.