Friday 9 September 2011

Flat Tyres

C02 Inflator
After a damn hard week back at school, with a new as yet flaky network and applications that I had never used before, let alone taught, this Friday was 'pub day' more than ever!
Unfortunately, when I got to the bike sheds, at about 2:46, my back tyre was flat!
I quickly whipped the tube out and replaced it with my spare tube, using a CO2 inflator as my wife is taking the Brommie this week and has my mini pump.
Unfortunately, by the time I had parked up in the pub, it was flat again!
This highlights two causes of failure.
1) the self adhesive patches have now failed my three times.
2) the CO2 inflator needs spare inflators and is a very expensive way of blowing up your tyres!

Quite what I will do as a result of this, I'm not sure, but money will be spent!

Addendum
Dual Action Pump
My prediction proved correct! I popped over to All Terrain Cycles (it was a good excuse to have a coffee at one of our favourite places, Saltaire Mill) and bought a new pump and tube(s) The pump is a "dual" action type which has a switch at the back to select either "high volume" or "high pressure". Its presta and schrader but unfortunately it is a very tight fit in my saddle bag so I've had to use the frame clip and mount it along side my water bottle. It is much faster than the Topeak Micro Rocket that I had before (now passed onto my wife for her Brompton toolkit)
The inner tubes were an absolute bargain, five tubes for £12.50. I have thrown away the patched spare and now have a brand new tube in my saddle bag. After inspecting the spare that blew, the patch was poorly applied and had come off - operator error I'm afraid!

2 comments:

  1. Yeah self adhesive patches are terrible, as are CO2 inflaters. It wouldn't have mattered if you'd stuck it on properly, the glue doesn't work very well compared to proper rubber cement.

    You should keep the old inner tube, it's amazing what superglue and innertube can repair. Think of the combination as waterproof "Super Ductape".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ive got some that are brilliant, but the topeak ones are too flexible and unless they have firm support, i.e. against a tyre wall, then they just pop.
    Ive quite a few old tubes now, I keep a bit in my saddle bag in case I get a tyre blow out.

    ReplyDelete