goo_mason
Champion barbed-wire hurdler
- Location
- Leith, Edinburgh
A mile and a half into the trip home tonight there's a loud hiss-hiss-hiss as my rear punctures. No problem - I pull up, get off the road onto the grass by the off-road cycle path and set-to the repair.
Hmmm. No sign of what's done the damage, but the back tyre is badly slashed in a few places and there are now some other new gaping holes right through to the inner lining. Could have been something going through one of those vulnerable spots. Remove wheel & pull out tube, then try to inflate to find the hole. Trouble getting Road Morph pump to work, so just replace with the spare tube. Put everything back together and try pump again. Still no joy so I pull out my CO2 inflator. Up goes the tyre, and immediately it goes right back down again. Great - the spare is holed too :-(
Ended up walking a mile back to Halfords at Hermiston Gait, where I bought a new inner tube and a Conti Ultra Gatorskin tyre as I didn't think my old Stelvio would withstand anything else even slightly sharp on the road. They let me bring the bike in to replace the tyre & tube indoors and they let me use their track pump - very kind of them. I also bought a couple of CO2 cartridges just in case of any further mishaps on the way home.
Total cost was just over £30. It would have been cheaper to get home by bus today, but that wouldn't have been any fun!
Hmmm. No sign of what's done the damage, but the back tyre is badly slashed in a few places and there are now some other new gaping holes right through to the inner lining. Could have been something going through one of those vulnerable spots. Remove wheel & pull out tube, then try to inflate to find the hole. Trouble getting Road Morph pump to work, so just replace with the spare tube. Put everything back together and try pump again. Still no joy so I pull out my CO2 inflator. Up goes the tyre, and immediately it goes right back down again. Great - the spare is holed too :-(
Ended up walking a mile back to Halfords at Hermiston Gait, where I bought a new inner tube and a Conti Ultra Gatorskin tyre as I didn't think my old Stelvio would withstand anything else even slightly sharp on the road. They let me bring the bike in to replace the tyre & tube indoors and they let me use their track pump - very kind of them. I also bought a couple of CO2 cartridges just in case of any further mishaps on the way home.
Total cost was just over £30. It would have been cheaper to get home by bus today, but that wouldn't have been any fun!