Pretty flower picture of the day
The last three times I took a ramble out along Marine Drive, I would ride past a clump of pretty flowers, and think “Oh, I don’t want to stop now, but maybe I should take a picture of them before they fade,” but then completely forget about them until the next time. This morning, I’d forgotten, as usual, but when I saw the clump I stepped on the brakes (for values of “stepped on” that apply to handbrakes,) skidded to a stop, clambered off the bicycle, and took a stack of photos.
And then I got on the bicycle again, rode for about 5km, and had my ride rudely punctuated by a shattered bottle that jabbed itself into my front wheel (and by the time I’d gotten the torn tube out (5 minutes), patched it (30 seconds), waited for the patch to dry (5-6 minutes), and reassembled the wheel (10 minutes; I’m not sure how the people at the LBS can pull apart and put together tires as quickly as they do, but it’s a skill that I need to develop PARTICULARLY if I ever start doing brevets and put myself into situations where I need to fix a wheel at midnight in the pouring rain 20km away from the nearest sign of civilization) any hope of getting another 75km had vanished with the morning’s dew.)
At least the strip of rubber I left by the flower on Marine Drive isn’t one of those things that’s likely to fatally compromise a tire.
Comments
Oh, it’s not the patching that’s the problem for me; I’ve been playing with model railroads for 40 years now, and I’ve gotten pretty good at gluing broken things back together. But the thing that takes me forever with a tire repair is prying the damned tire off the rim, then forcing it back into place without getting a pinch puncture in the process.
It doesn’t take nearly as long for the people at the LBS to do this process (when I lost a spoke on the front wheel earlier this fall, I bought a new tire when I was in the shop, fully expecting that I’d have to wrestle it into place when I got home. They offered to change the tire for me, then handed the wheel back with the new tire about 2 minutes later. That’s a bit faster than I can do it.)
I am very far from expert, but I recall being told that the usual small tire levers found in patch kits are a snare and a delusion and that the much larger sizes usually found in bike shops work much better, partially as a question of angle.
Suspect it comes down to having done several thousand tires, too; one is bound to get good at something done that often.
I do think these are pretty, however, they are actually a weed. But i do like how people appreciate these beautiful weeds :)
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My take on this is that inner tubes are 4 CAD per, and that I would much rather do the patching when I have good light, a basin of soapy water, and sufficient shelter that I need not worry about getting rain in the glue. So carrying a couple spare inner tubes seems like a better course than having to patch effectively in the field.