Flat tire

Sep. 5th, 2013 10:23 pm
johnridley: (me2)
Another flat tire today on the road bike, this time in front. Another bad patch, but this one was because I put a patch on top of a patch while trying to fix the last bad patch. I knew at the time that it was probably going to fail.

I've thrown out that tube.

Yes, I'm getting a LOT of flat tires. Turns out that high pressure tires are really susceptible to problems.

Odometer: 1884
johnridley: (me2)
Today's (*) flat tire actually had a reason (all previous flats on this bike have been due to snakebite - which I've pretty much eliminated by keeping the tires well inflated and changing my riding style to less in the gutter so I'm not hitting rough bits as much).

Looks a bit like a steel wire from a wire brush or something. Does not look like a wire from a tire band.

(*) this was from September 4. I changed the post date but this is not reflected in the post for some reason.

johnridley: (me2)
Had a flat tire (rear), was a bad patch - one of the old square ones done with bad technique. Replaced patch. Rear tire center is clearly worn flat but still lots of miles (it has 1000 miles on it now).

Reconfigured - moved handlebar bag to seat post on a ToPeak T bar to free up bar space for headlight in a normal position.

Chain cleaned and re-lubed with Chain-L lube (new lube). VERY quiet running, supposed to be an excellent lube. Really thick. Chain still does not register as even 0.75 wear on the chain gauge.

Odometer: 1622

Flat tire

Mar. 27th, 2013 08:38 am
johnridley: (me2)
First flat on the new bike today. I hit a pothole and got a pinch flat. Observations:

  • I put my headlight on the helmet. That's a lousy place for a light, it gives you no contrast to see potholes. The handlebar bag is in the way for lighting, but I'm going to have to figure out something else - perhaps on the bars under the brakes or something. I have to get the headlight down lower.

  • The skinnier tires are actually a little easier to change than the 32 to 35s that I run on the other bike. Or maybe it's just these particular tires. I have some Nashbar Prima 2 tires coming - they're $15 and the reviews say they are long-lasting (4000/8000 miles on front/back) and pretty puncture-resistant.  The tires this thing came with are said to only last 2000 miles or so, so I'll be wearing them out this summer.

  • I flatted in a lovely spot for changing a tire - 5 foot wide paved shoulder, good lane markings, a proper curb and a nice sloping mowed grass verge. I've had to change tires on a rutted loose gravel spot with a dropoff into the ditch and no shoulder before.

  •  I hope I don't flat again before I get home - I only have one spare tube and no patch kit. I suppose I should toss a patch or two and some cement into the kit. (I hate glueless patches - they don't work well for me and I just have to scrape them off before putting on a REAL patch).

johnridley: (Calvin vs bike)
  1. I now have a bike tube with 7 patches on it. One of those is actually 3 patches, the 2nd two covering a big crack in the first. The other tube is a brand new one after the last one got too bad to mess with anymore.
  2. twice now I've had the name brand patches crack and cause a new leak. The cheap-assed 30 for $3 patches I got from Harbor Freight have yet to fail.
    G+ comments after the cut )
johnridley: (Calvin vs bike)
I don't get a lot of flats, but it does happen. This drywall screw made a hell of a racket when I picked it up, whacking against the fender stays. This was about 300 feet from the driveway into work so I only had about 1/4 mile to walk. It's a lot more comfortable dropping a new tube in at work than on the side of the road, and probably faster too; I was done and pumped back up again in about 6 minutes.


Odometer: 24,456
johnridley: (Calvin vs bike)


As an aside, I had a flat on, um, Thursday I think, slow leak. Patched it Friday morning, found that the Schwalbe Marathon that was on there was paper thin down the middle, so I tossed on the remaining Top Touring 2000 that E.O. gave me a couple of years ago (one of them self-destructed). It's doing well but it feels like it's filled with concrete in comparison to the Marathon. I think it's actually skinnier even though they're both theoretically 32s.

I didn't find what caused the flat, since I rode on it for at least 6 miles after noticing that it was going flat, it probably just came out. But since I'm not using that tire anyway, I guess it doesn't matter.

Odometer: 24006 duh

Flat tire

Jul. 7th, 2010 05:09 pm
johnridley: (Default)
The bike's rear tire was not quite totally flat but extremely soft this morning. Pumped up the tube, didn't find anything on a 15 second exam, wanted to get to work, so I just threw in another tube.

Found the leak this evening by water immersion - it was so slow that it wasn't immediately apparent even then. Pinch flat (snakebite). 2nd one I've gotten in the last few years. Not too surprising, since I let my pressure get down pretty low, perhaps as low as in the 30-40 PSI range, and the gravel road I ride on is getting relatively miserable - really bad washboarding. It may be about time to take another route for a while. The next shortest route is another 3 miles but only an extra 7 or 8 minutes since it's all relatively flat, decent paved roads, and it's still fairly low traffic.

Gotta remember to keep the tire pressure up.

Odometer: 21745

Flat tire

May. 6th, 2010 11:17 am
johnridley: (Default)
Had a soft tire last night, started to change it but it was only soft, figured I could pump it up and see how far I could get; at least I could get to a road that wasn't busy with 60 MPH traffic. Made it home, but it was dead flat this morning.

Found a small puncture. Did not find the cause. Installed the spare, the punctured tube is at home awaiting patching, the alternate spare I put in the bag I'm not too sure of, it might be dry rotted. I didn't test it, as I don't have any more spares anyway. I'll test it tonight after I get the other tube patched.

This is my first flat with the Marathon tires. Rear tire, FWIW. It MAY have been a pinch flat, I didn't look at the tube closely. I'll check it better tonight.

I just cut up another tube that was dry rotted along the folds, to use as straps to tie up a tree that needs straightening, heavy duty rubber bands and other utilitarian uses.

Odometer: pretty close to 21000 miles.

Flat tire

Mar. 27th, 2009 07:45 am
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
I had my first flat tire due to a road hazard in well over a year this morning. So I got to practice changing a flat in the dark. Not bad but I could use one of those head mounted LED lights. I think it probably took me about 12 minutes, but mainly because I hadn't done it in so long that I had to hunt around for my tire tools, and the pump nozzle was set to presta valve, and it's hard to change without tools (you have to pick this little rubber gasket out with fingernails). At least the pump is set correctly now so that'll be 4 minutes faster next time.

The hazard that did it in this case was the 3-5cm crushed rock that the county spread all over the two spots on the gravel road that are mushy due to the frost breaking up. The rocks are big and vicious and are from ditch to ditch, and you just can't avoid them. I think for a while I'm going to have to either walk my bike over them or take another route. Walking may not be a good option though since the county seems to spread more loose gravel a couple of times a week lately, though most of it isn't these huge rocks.

Odometer: 17059
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
Halfway home today my rear blew out. It sounded like a gunshot. I didn't have a spare tube (hadn't gotten around to buying one yet) and I assumed I'd just missed a sharp bit on the valve hole, which wouldn't be patchable (and I hate field patching anyway) and it was an hour walk, so I called the SAG van (J).

When I got home the blowout was on the backside, and it looked to me like I probably nicked it with a tire tool or something, but in hindsight, I don't think this tube ever saw a tire tool; I put the tire ON without tools.

I patched it and put it back on, and about 2 minutes later, got another BANG! right in my ear. The tube had blown out even more violently, the same distance the OTHER side of the valve stem.

Turns out the tire failed around the bead. These tires are quite thin on the sidewall and either they've just seen too many miles or I abused them. Could be the latter; the old rims were actually pretty tough to get tires on and off of, and I did have to work to get them off. But OTOH, the tire looks pretty bad along several parts of the bead.

Anyway, I still have the Race Lite that was on the front last year, so that's going on the back. That's easily got a couple thousand more miles in it I think so I'm probably OK until sometime next year (I'll be buying some new studded tires for winter).



Odometer: 15134
These tires went on at 12907 so the rear lasted 2227 miles. The Race Lites went on new at 5250 in April '06, off at 8459 to mount studs, back on at 9800 and off at 12343 miles in November '07, so it already has 5752 miles on it (it was on the front before).

I also found the new amber xenon strobe in one of the storage boxes from the basement, and got the power cord soldered on to it, dug the mounting plate from the bike parts box, mounted it all up and hooked it up.

Flat tire

Jun. 10th, 2008 08:34 pm
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
Well, I'm out of the "length of time without a flat" race for the year. Embarrassingly enough, it was a patch failure, not a road hazard. I've never had a patch failure before, and there's really no excuse for them, I just didn't do it right.

[EDIT] - weird; I just went out to top off the bike and check out the old tube, and the problem was actually a DEFECTIVE patch. It was firmly adhered, but the thing clearly had cracked. It's probably from a cheap generic Kmart patch kit. In fairness, I've been running that tube for probably 12000 miles now, through a dozen tire changes. I guess I should pick up a package of TipTop patches or something. Unfortunately they come in something like 50 packs, which is about a 50 year supply for me.[/EDIT]

I have always thought that patching is a good idea, and in general I still think it is, but I have so few flats (less than one a year) that by the time I get around to using my patch kit, the patches and the glue tube are all dried up, so I wind up buying a new patch kit for every flat tube. Also, by the time I flat a tube it's been through a season and probably a set of tires, and the one I've been carrying as a spare has been sitting for a year. I've had tubes fall apart after 2 or 3 years in a bag. So maybe after a year it's time to rotate in that spare tube before it falls apart.

There are people on BF that have up to 3 or 4 flats a week; they ride in urban areas where there is smashed glass on the roads all over the place. It seems like most people on there get 4 or 5 a year though. For people getting a few flats a year, I still think patching is a good idea.

Snow???

Nov. 5th, 2007 09:15 pm
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
Oh, dammit, do I need to put the studs on the bike already? I've made it to late November the last few years. It says snow at 6AM tomorrow morning. I should already be at work by then, but we'll see what it looks like when I get up. I may be changing tires. The afternoon doesn't look bad, but it looks like studs before too long.

I had a flat when I went to ride home this evening. I didn't get the rim tape down properly; the fancy Velox tape is barely adhesive at all, so I had to almost hold it in place while putting the tube in, and I didn't hold it quite well enough, it slipped sideways, and I got a puncture in the tube from one of the spokes protruding in. I used 290mm spokes, turns out I could have used 287s or so; most of them stick in a couple of mm but still below the tape.

I was going to buy Pedro's rim tape but they were out.

Anyway, I had put a presta tube in there and had planned on buying a 21/64 drill bit on the way home to drill for schraeder valve (the car tire standard). Didn't make it that far though, and I didn't have a spare tube with a presta valve. So I borrowed a car to run to the bike shop and buy another presta valved tube. They were closed. So I called for a bail-out from [livejournal.com profile] jennlk, bought the drill bit and headed back to work to wait for the ride.

The wheel now has a schraeder tube in it and all is well again. The disc brake is niiice.

Breakdown!

Jul. 15th, 2005 08:26 am
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
Last night, I picked up a piece of glass in my tire. Big enough leak to hear, but I was only a mile from home so I just rode on in and changed the tube once I got there.
This morning, I went to shift up (in front) and the SRAM link just fell apart. Luckily, only about a mile from Dexter, so I walked to the top of the hill, coasted in from there, and bought a 99 cent main link at the hardware store.
Observations )
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
After Wednesday's fun:

I flatted both new tubes on the way home Wednesday, patched one, rode home on it, and THAT went flat after getting home.
John's continued learning experiences )

johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
I'm finally over my tiny, irritating cold enough to feel like riding again
Read more... )
johnridley: (Calvin vs Bike)
Today I found out how much good self-sealing tires do. Squat, that's how much.

I picked up a staple in my tire on the way back from Subway. Just a standard staple from an Arrow staple gun. Two holes. I heard it when I picked it up, was just a couple hundred feet from work, rode in, saw the staple and the green gunk coming out. Pulled the staple, rotated the tire so the holes were on the bottom, went inside for 5 minutes. Came back out, the tire is flat, the holes still leaking even with just a little pressure.

So I pulled a few inches of tube out to patch it. I then found what the stuff is really good for. It goos up the tube so you can't put a real patch on without cleaning. Luckily I was at work, so paper towels, water, and alcohol patches were within 50 feet.

From the manufacturer:
The SlimeĀ® sealant seals most holes up to 1/8-in instantly while you ride.

Yeah, right. I'm pulling these tubes out when it's time to switch to winter tires. At least standard tubes I can patch without cleaning off a bunch of green crap.

I also discovered that you get a lot more sweaty pumping to 50 PSI with a mini frame pump than riding the mile to the sandwich shop. But it's not really worth upgrading the frame pump to avoid a little sweat 2 or 3 times a year. I have a floor pump at home.

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