sharps & flats - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

02-02-2007, 12:22 PM

Wouldn't ya know it? I'm out & about yesterday,
and on the return leg I got a rear wheel flat,
5 blocks from home. Too close to home for field
repairs. So I hoofed it for the remaining distance,
suffering the ignonamy of walking my crippled bike.

Anyway, when installing a tube, I always line the
valve stem up with the "inflate to" markings on
the tires.

This morning I dismantled tire & tube, pumped up
the loose tube, and noted where the air was hissing
in relation to where the valve is. I then inspected
the corresponding location in the tire in relation to
where the "inflate to" markings are, and immediately
homed-in on the offending li'l bastard -- a tiny, pointy
glass shard. I gingerly flicked it out of its nest with
the tip of my toad-sticker pocketknife blade, and
reassembled the works with a fresh tube.

The whole process only took about five minutes.
Subsequent handwashing is still ongoing, though.
I guess a lot of that gunk is brake pad rubber.
Maybe a fringe benefit of Kool Stop salmons is
cleaner wheels when dealing with flats. I'm
going to have to resort to a palmful of laundry
detergent powder to get my hands comfortably clean.
Or, as Claire once jokingly suggested: bake some bread.

Fortunately for me it wasn't a slow leak -- sometimes
it takes quite a while to find the causes of those.

Now I get to ride down to Mountain Equipment Co-op
and buy a new spare tube. I'll patch the old one
later; it'll doofer a spare spare tube.

Knowing where the valve stem is in the tire
really does help to find the causes of flats.
Having a point of reference beats having do
do random searches.

And having "icky" hands just drives me up the wall.

And having to walk one's bike tastes bitterly
of defeat.

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

02-02-2007, 02:14 PM

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:22:48 -0800, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats)
wrote:

>
>Anyway, when installing a tube, I always line the
>valve stem up with the "inflate to" markings on
>the tires.

And then line them both up with a sticker or marker on the rim. A fair
number of flats are caused by the rim side of things - especially if
you have rims like the old Rigidas (make you a believer in the best
rim tapes).

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

02-02-2007, 04:09 PM

On Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:14:25 -0500, Curtis L. Russell
<[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:22:48 -0800, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats)
>wrote:
>>Anyway, when installing a tube, I always line the
>>valve stem up with the "inflate to" markings on
>>the tires.
>
>And then line them both up with a sticker or marker on the rim. A fair
>number of flats are caused by the rim side of things - especially if
>you have rims like the old Rigidas (make you a believer in the best
>rim tapes).

To state the obvious, most people line the valve stem up with the
valve hole on the rim...

Pat

Email address works as is.

02-02-2007, 06:13 PM

On Feb 2, 8:09 pm, Patrick Lamb <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
> To state the obvious, most people line the valve stem up with the
> valve hole on the rim...
>

Sure, but if you're getting glass shards going through your rim,
you've got bigger problems.

02-03-2007, 01:23 AM

Curtis L. Russell wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:22:48 -0800, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Anyway, when installing a tube, I always line the
> >valve stem up with the "inflate to" markings on
> >the tires.
>
> And then line them both up with a sticker or marker on the rim.

That's kind of automatic since the valve needs to be lined up with the
hole in the rim.

> A fair
> number of flats are caused by the rim side of things - especially if
> you have rims like the old Rigidas (make you a believer in the best
> rim tapes).

What do you see as special about the old Rigida rims in this regard.
I'm still using the Rigida 13-19 rim on the rear wheel that I
installed 30 years ago using electrical tape as the rim strip. Don't
recall getting any rim-side flats on that wheel.

02-03-2007, 07:48 AM

On Feb 2, 4:22 pm, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats) wrote:
>
> Knowing where the valve stem is in the tire
> really does help to find the causes of flats.
> Having a point of reference beats having do
> do random searches.

Does anyone besides me mark which side of the tube is right vs. left?
You know - to prevent having to search both clockwise and
counterclockwise from the stem's position?

- Frank Krygowski

02-03-2007, 08:23 AM

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] wrote:
> On Feb 2, 4:22 pm, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats) wrote:
>>
>> Knowing where the valve stem is in the tire
>> really does help to find the causes of flats.
>> Having a point of reference beats having do
>> do random searches.
>
> Does anyone besides me mark which side of the tube is right vs. left?
> You know - to prevent having to search both clockwise and
> counterclockwise from the stem's position?

Couldn't you just always orient the print on the tube (assuming there is
any) to, say, the drive side?

02-04-2007, 04:23 PM

On 3 Feb 2007 08:48:05 -0800, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] wrote:

>On Feb 2, 4:22 pm, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats) wrote:
>>
>> Knowing where the valve stem is in the tire
>> really does help to find the causes of flats.
>> Having a point of reference beats having do
>> do random searches.
>
>Does anyone besides me mark which side of the tube is right vs. left?
>You know - to prevent having to search both clockwise and
>counterclockwise from the stem's position?

I've thought about that, looking for an elusive wire or shard. But
for some reason I never remember when I'm putting the wheel back
together. How do you mark the side?

Pat

Email address works as is.

02-05-2007, 06:34 AM

On Feb 2, 9:22 pm, [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] (Tom Keats) wrote:
<snip>
> The whole process only took about five minutes.
> Subsequent handwashing is still ongoing, though.
> I guess a lot of that gunk is brake pad rubber.
> Maybe a fringe benefit of Kool Stop salmons is
> cleaner wheels when dealing with flats. I'm
> going to have to resort to a palmful of laundry
> detergent powder to get my hands comfortably clean.
> Or, as Claire once jokingly suggested: bake some bread.
>
<snip>
> And having "icky" hands just drives me up the wall.
>
<snip>

I keep a pair of "surgical" gloves in my seatpack, just the cheap
ones.
It's a bit over the top, but they take up no space in the pack, and
really keep your hands clean when working on the bike at the side of
the road.

I'm not normally too worried about having grimy hands, but it's easier
to keep them from getting dirty in the first place than it is to clean
them afterwards, and I like to keep my bar tape reasonably clean.

regards,

bookieb

02-05-2007, 09:02 AM

Also, at home before doing any grimy work I slather on hand lotion, greasy
works best. Then wash up goes real fast. Does not sink into pores and
never leaves marks.