Flat Bike Tire

[ellis555]

i just asked a friend of mine who’s cat-1, and he said “i just let the support van take care of it.” i guess that works.

thanks for the input. ironically enough, two of my buddies (i’m at a college with a large campus, so everyone bikes to classes) both just also punctured their back tires. one is patching and one is replacing the tube. we’ll see how this experiment carries out.

-ellis

[DougC]

• • • 1. Pump the (leaking) tire up, and find the hole by either listening or running your hand around the tread until you feel the air. - 2. Release air, pull tire bead off rim (with your hands, don’t use levers if you can avoid them) and pull out tube enough to work on (but not completely out). - 3. Find object that made the hole - very often it will be embedded in the tire, and will make another hole when you patch and reassemble everything if you don’t remove it. - 4. Patch and reassemble in reverse order. Hints:Don’t take the wheel off the bike, and don’t take the tire off the wheel, and don’t take the tube completely out of the tire. You don’t have to - you just have to reach the place where the hole is.
• • • I do note that if everything is clean, patches work well. If everything is muddy or dusty, patches can be useless. I carry one “good” tube, but often it is a patched tube, not brand-new. I do avoid folding patched tubes on the patches though. - MC

[JoeyBlades]

douglips wrote:

I suspect you mean a kevlar layer in the casing.

doh! Yes, you caught me. I’m not sure what I was thinking.
MC wrote some (what I think is) bad advice:

• • • 1. Pump the (leaking) tire up, and find the hole by either listening or running your hand around the tread until you feel the air. -

This is a very ineffective way to locate the source of the leak. A well used tire is likely to have a number of holes in it and you can never be sure that the most recent one is the one that will let air escape most freely. You have to attack the tube.

2. Release air, pull tire bead off rim (with your hands, don’t use levers if you can avoid them) and pull out tube enough to work on (but not completely out). -

Agree with you on the levers, but you have to pull the tube, as stated earlier.

3. Find object that made the hole - very often it will be embedded in the tire, and will make another hole when you patch and reassemble everything if you don’t remove it. - 4. Patch and reassemble in reverse order.

Yep, I agree with that…

Hints :Don’t take the wheel off the bike, and don’t take the tire off the wheel, and don’t take the tube completely out of the tire. You don’t have to - you just have to reach the place where the hole is.

It’s easier (and sometimes necessary) to take the wheel off. Always pull the tube and check for multiple holes, by the way. This does occur, especially if you roll over a cactus or something… There have been times when I could not find the source of the puncture without inverting the tire. Cactus needles will sometimes enter at oblique angles. With your method you are more likely to assume that the offending object is not still in the tire, when in fact, it still is. It only takes an extra minute to check the tire properly (assuming you’ve got quick releases). Also, with this technique, I’ve found thorns that have not yet punctured the tube, but probably would if I rode a bit further with them in the tire.

One other bit of advice… it seems obvious to me, but I’ve seen guys struggling on the trails… if you’re going to change to a new tube, put a little air in it before you try to mount it. It will be easier to fit and you’re less likely to pinch the tube.

[Poto]

My Lutheran upbringing requires me to patch the tube. I never use them, always have a spare. But if I had more flats on that ride, I would have the patched spares.
(I’m now Godless, but the Lutheran thing doesn’t wear off that easy).