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8 Tips for Fixing a Flat Bicycle Tire

10.30.2016 by Scott Jangro // 3 Comments

8 Tips for Fixing a Flat Bicycle Tire

Eventually, everybody is going to experience a flat tire. Flat tires are easy to fix, though you probably don’t want to be learning how to do this on the road in a real life scenario.

Instead, do it from the comfort of your own driveway a few times to get some experience, and to make sure you have all the right tools.

Here’s what you need:

  • tube patch kit
  • Spare tube
  • Compressed air or tire pump
  • Tire levers

There are countless videos on YouTube to teach how to change a tube, but here are some of my own tips, most of which only come from experience and learning from others:

  1. Always try find the source of the flat tire before putting in a new tube. If there’s something sharp in your tire, it may still be there and may puncture your new tube. CAREFULLY run your finger along the outside and inside of the tire to find anything sharp that may have caused the puncture. It’s not always something sharp, as hitting a pothole can cause a pinch flat.

  2. Find the hole in the punctured tube. Verify what you have determined to be the cause of the flat by locating the puncture in the tube, or you may determine that it was a pinch flat, which would mean that there’s nothing sharp involved. Just hard bump like hitting a rock or pothole. If you have an air pump, you can pump it up and look for the hole. If you found something sharp in the tire, match that up to the same spot on the tube. How can you do this? See the next tip.

  3. Always line up the tire in the same place on the rim relative to the air stem. I always put the brand logo of the tire centered on the stem. This way you always know the exact position of the tire relative to the tube to help find a puncture.

  4. If you can, repair the tube. A tube repair takes only a few minutes, and a patched tube is just as good as a new one. Save your spare tube for the next flat, which could be right around the corner. Or even right after you inflate the tire if you failed to find the sharp object in your tire the first time around. At least keep the old tube, just in case.

  5. Be careful with the tire levers. You can cause a pinch flat being too aggressive with tire levers either getting the old tire off, or the new one on. I prefer to use just one lever to get the bead over the rim when taking the tire off, and none at all when putting the tire on. But some tire/rim combinations are really difficult. Getting the tire off and back on the rim is the trickiest part, and this is the part where experience in your driveway with some dry-run tire changes can really help.

  6. Make sure you have the right size spare tube. There are lots of different tube diameters, and even widths. If you have 700×25 tubes, you can go up or down a bit on the width, but too much extra width can prevent you from even getting the tire on the rim, just because of the extra rubber in there.

  7. Get familiar with your drivetrain. Putting the back tire back on a bike can be an exercise in frustration if you don’t know how the pieces fit together. After countless times removing the back tire from my own bike, I still have to take an extra few seconds to remember how I need to move the back derailleur to get the wheel to fit back in.

  8. Get help from an experienced friend. It’s great to see someone change a tire with confidence to see how easy it really is. Get a friend to show you how to do it. Preferably at home and not out on a ride. But it sure is great to have a friend there with you when you have a real-life flat.

With some planning and practice, mechanical issues like a flat can be just part of the experience, rather than a ride-ender.

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Categories // Tips

Keep It Simple, Newbie!

06.13.2013 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

Guest poster Don Blount has a new biker in the family, and he’s learned that sometimes, “Keep it simple” is the best tip he can give.

BlountOnBikingMy sister-in-law Gina, who lives in Ohio, recently took up road bike riding. She bought a Giant Avail 1, a slick aluminum frame bike designed for women.

She has already managed to get out for a few solo rides and was planning to join in on a group ride soon.

We have talked and texted a lot about biking since.

Our conversations have reminded me a lot of when I purchased my bike in August 2008. I wanted to know anything and everything I could about cycling. And yet, it seemed that I repeatedly received the same answer from more experienced riders: “Just ride and enjoy it.”

And although Gina and I have discussed quite a few things I now find myself saying to her: “Just ride and enjoy it.”

I see now that it is easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of cycling whether it be cycling cadence, breathing, what to carry in your jersey pockets or saddlebag. Particularly when you are as inquisitive as Gina, and I guess I would fall into that category as well. But many things about cycling you learn in time.

The most important thing is to just enjoy your time on the bike no matter what type of riding you do.

There are plenty of things that will be learned in time.

Don Blount's sister-inlaw, Gina, practices fixing a flat tire. The supervisor at right was no help but would not move out of the photo.
Don Blount’s sister-inlaw, Gina, practices fixing a flat tire. The supervisor at right was no help but would not move out of the photo.

I did share a few things with her during her recent visit to Stockton. I told her to carry a spare tube, an inflator whether it be a C02 cartridge or pump (I carry both). And I also recommended she to learn how to change a flat on the road. To that end I had her practice by changing the tube on my bike’s rear wheel.

Finally, I suggested she wipe down and inspect her tires after each ride and to wipe down the chain too. By inspecting the tires you can see the wear and remove any objects embedded in the tires before they have a chance to penetrate the tube and cause a flat. Wiping down the chain removes dirt and grime the chain picks up while on the road. Removing it helps the drivetrain run more smoothly and helps reduce wear on those parts.

For that matter, our flat-fixing lesson came in handy. Less than a week later as Gina prepared to go out for a ride, she discovered that she had a flat front tire. “Let’s just say it took a little longer than when I did it with you,” she said in a text. Unfortunately, by the time she had the tire repaired it was too dark to ride.

She said the lesson she learned was to check the bike well before it is time to ride.

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Categories // guest post, Tips Tags // Blount, guest post, noob

Some Basic Tips For Noobs

05.28.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

I decided not to ride Sunday morning, because it was pouring rain when I woke up. Dumb move. Things were pretty well dried out by 9 a.m., and if I’d been a little more patient, I could have gone. As it was, I did a short ride with my wife, as I mentioned in the last post.

But I wanted to make up for the lost B ride, so I posted that I would go Monday morning, since it was a holiday. We would do the Same Fitzhugh route that the A’s did on Sunday. Three others came out to join me, including Yasmin and Frank, two new B riders who rode with us for the first time last week.

Both of them have recently bought new bikes, and they’re both strong riders who will only get stronger and faster as they keep riding. As we negotiated the rolling hills along Fitzhugh Road, Frank stayed with Buddy, who moved well out in front. Yasmin got ahead of me, and while I had some trouble sticking with her, we were closer together than Buddy and Frank were to us.

At the turnaround, about 16 miles out from the start, Yasmin complained that her saddle was bothering her. She’s a tall woman, and the bike frame she had appeared to be sized for a man. But the saddle was a narrow racing style. I could relate to her distress. I rode a narrow racing saddle for about a year, when I finally ditched it some something wider and more comfortable.

“When you take it back to the shop, ask them to fit you with a wider saddle,” I suggested. Because of women’s wider pelvises, they need wider saddles than men, anyway.

At another rest stop farther on, both Yasmin and Frank expressed concern about their hands. They were getting numb, and they were shaking them out periodically.

In Frank’s case, he was riding with his elbows locked. “One of the guys told me to ride with my elbows bent,” he said. “I’m trying to get used to that.” Bending the elbows takes weight off the hands. The saddle should have been positioned in such a way that the elbows naturally bend when the rider is in his standard riding position. When I had my bike fitting some years ago, the fitter said it’s more common that people have their saddle too far back rather than too far forward. For most people, he said, moving the saddle forward will provide that elbow bend and make for a more comfortable riding position.

Fitters often use KOPS, or Knee Over Pedal Spindle, as a way to determine saddle fore-aft position. But the other day I was re-reading Peter White’s excellent contrarian article about bike fitting, where he pooh-poohs that notion. It’s all about balance, he says, the kind of balance between power and comfort. The article inspired me to do some tweaking on my saddle position.

It turned out that Yasmin was pushing her hands against the brake hoods. While that seems like a normal position for a new rider, it can cause the hands to go numb quickly. I showed them how to position the hands so the pressure is on the outside heels of the hands, not the webbing between the thumb and forefinger. “It usually doesn’t take much of a shift in position to relieve the pressure,” I said.

We wrapped up the ride and went our separate ways. I hope the tips about saddle width, bending the elbows, and hand position will help Frank and Yasmin enjoy their riding. I fully expect it will have negative consequences for me — it’ll just make them stronger riders, and I’ll be left behind again.

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Categories // Bike fit, Tips Tags // hands, numb, saddle

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