On Mon, 2011-04-18 at 11:32 -1000, Robert F. Harrison wrote: > always carry a spare tube when I'm on my Quickbeam. I also carry a > patch kit so that I can swap and repair. I've actually had two flats > on the same ride but that was my fault. I'm riding 35mm Paselas and It > turned out a bit of glass was embedded in the tire and the once over I > gave it didn't detect the problem. After I had the second flat I bent > the tire this way and that and found it only because it poked out when > the tire was really deformed; even a light bending didn't reveal it. > That day I only had a spare tube having misplaced the patch kit. Never > again.
That sort of thing does in fact happen. Some sharp objects are very hard to see - a sliver of glass the size of a grain of rice or a wire from a radial car tire, for example - and you may very well end up discarding a tire that just plain keeps getting mystery flats without ever finding out what's lurking in there. And people make mistakes. Catch a fold of the tube under the tire bead, and have the tube wedge the tire off the rim complete with resulting explosion and a tube with a six inch rip that can't be repaired, that's a popular one. Another frustrating one: tip the pump at a bit of an angle and break off the inside portion of the valve. Get frustrated at your inability to get the last six inches of tire over the bead and use a tire iron to wedge it over, and puncture the tube. Get a little over-eager with the CO2 inflator, freeze your tube and have it shatter like a piece of glass. Or, as I did once, after carrying that tube around for almost a year, come to use it to fix a flat in the rain and discover instead of being a 700C, it's a 17 x 1 1/4"! I must have been very tired - it was around mile 70 of a century - because it took me several minutes to work out why that tube just plain didn't fit, even though I could clearly see the "7x1 1/4" marked on the tube (many tubes are marked 27 x 1 1/4 / 700C). Maybe it was the rain on my glasses... And just because you have a spare, doesn't mean it will hold air. Could be one you meant to patch after the last flat, and forgot (yes, I've done that) or it could be that it's gone bad somehow. I once had a guy on a ride I was leading who went through two of his tubes and one of his wife's and found every one of them was a leaker. And the tube of glue in his patch kit had dried out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
