Tubes A true flat Story

[graucho]

Anyone a bit older, remember the days when 3 people would stop to make sure you were
OK and if you needed any help? You didnt need to carry tools because the home owner
who's house you broke down in front of would borrow you a few. Your family would ask how
long your going to be gone, then come looking for you if you were gone to long. WAIT, I must
be thinking of a "leave to beaver" episode.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

I'm pretty good about stopping and offering help if someone is broken down and I can see that they are trying to fix something. (I'm not an automotive expert, but I carry more tools, jacks, cable hoists, etc than average).

One time there was a guy with a flat. His jack was broken. He thanked me and told me he had been there three hours, or something like that. No one had stopped. He went on, "I guess I don't blame 'em".

I went away thinking that it seems we've become a society that fears people will fake a break down in order to rob or murder each other.

Sad (and worrisome) when you think about it.

 

[Mountainman]

I went away thinking that it seems we've become a society that fears people will fake a break down in order to rob or murder each other.

Sad (and worrisome) when you think about it.

yes - it is (worrisome)

we had a woman man team here in San Diego
the woman acted as if she was broke down on the side of the road
when the good guy pulled over to help
bad guy jumped out of the bushes
need not say what happened

it is not something that should stop us
from helping others
but - to remember to the best that we can

be careful when we ride that thing Mountainman

 

[WinstonSmith2600]

I use the solid innertubes so I dont have to deal with flats and carrying pumps and tubes. I know they say it makes the ride slightly more bumpy but it's worth it to me and I dont notice much of a difference.

 

[az cra-z]

I recently had an encounter with "Mr. Staple" too, 1/2 x 1/2 inch. It got through a kevlar belt and a thick innertube. Made it home, about 3 miles, with two stops to put in a CO2 cartridge (I never leave home without them, much quicker than pumping air). Not complaining, though, I went over a year and over 4,000 miles on the MB (and several thousand more miles on non-MBs) since the last flat.

 

[Alaskavan]

Well, after saying how much I believe in Mr. Tuffies, I just had my second flat on the trike. Again it happened just at the end of a long ride. And, again it was a pinch where the Mr. Tuffies overlap. I put a tire patch on the new tube right in that area, and put a patch on the liner to cover the overlap.

 

[Mairead]

For those who don't know this trick already: http://www.teamestrogen.com/content.ep?file=asa_levers

The author earns her living as a wrench and is also a sponsored race competitor - she has street creds if anybody does!

 

[sparky]

Tire liners FTW!

I traveled at least 1,000 miles without getting a flat, and the last couple hundred miles before the flat I was riding with two sharp metal pieces in my rear tire and I didn't even care to change it before a ride. Finally, I hit a huge nail, dead on in the middle of the tire. If tire liners help 2 outta 3 times your tires run into some metal.... that ain't bad.

Why is it always the rear tire, tho? Every flat I've gotten has been the rear friggin' tire!! I get the puncture resistant tubes for the rear and regular tubes for the front. Everything hits the back... and I'm prolly just wasting money on the puncture resistant tubes.

 

[az cra-z]

Why is it always the rear tire, tho?

The old guys always used to say that the front tire "stands up" the nail, etc., and sets it up for the back tire to catch. They also used a thin flat piece of metal mounted to the fork to scrape the front tire, the idea being to keep things from getting stuck into the tire.

 

[Alaskavan]

Back when I used to ride bikes with sew-up tires, I used wires on both front and back. They only work well on pretty slick tires. It seems like nails, glass, etc. usually don't get through the tire on the first rotation, but rather work their way in. The wire catches them on the first rotation and knocks them off.