How easy is it to fix a bike puncture?
- Thread starter Anonymous1502
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- puncture
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overmind
My other bike is a Pinarello
- Location
- Reading, Berkshire
That is a good point about finding the hole. I usually use a bowl with water in it (and check for bubbles); obviously, you cannot carry a bowl of water with you.
I remember I once rode to somewhere called the velolife cycle cafe (cycle cafe of the year apparently) and got a puncture as I was approaching the cafe. Stupidly, I had no tools with me but the people in the cafe were very kind and gave me one of those scabs patches and lent me a pump. When I pumped the tyre I discovered it was only a slow puncture so I was able to get home without a repair.
overmind
My other bike is a Pinarello
- Location
- Reading, Berkshire
No, not at all, I don't like riding with a patch stuck on an innertube, I've seen what happened when my mate went downhill at speed and it blew off, or at least that's what we suspect happened, just about wore his face off on the tarmac!
How could you possibly know that without some kind of forensic examination?
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
But @cougie uk just think of the benefit of pressure release to posters who answer the thread question: 6 pages!!
And it's a subject nearly everyone (on here) is expert in.
The OP simply going on t'net and quickly finding a complete answer would just not do. Some CycleChat threads have useful info within . . . .
And it's a subject nearly everyone (on here) is expert in.
The OP simply going on t'net and quickly finding a complete answer would just not do. Some CycleChat threads have useful info within . . . .
Smokin Joe
Legendary Member
- Location
- Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
Six pages on how to fix a puncture.
The OP was having a laugh, surely?
The OP was having a laugh, surely?
vickster
Legendary Member
Well she did say in post #5 that she’d had it fixed and hasn’t posted a lot since
matticus
Guru
Has anyone mentioned tubeless yet?
overmind
My other bike is a Pinarello
- Location
- Reading, Berkshire
Do tubeless get punctures? I thought that the tyre was filled with that 'goo' stuff which seals the puncture.
It looks like that if they are sufficiently bad you can use the method below. I fixed a car tyre with one of those recently. It worked really well.
https://www.tredz.co.uk/help-advice/product-help/how-to/maintenance/fix-tubeless-tyre-punctures
weareHKR
Senior Member
- Location
- North East Coast - UK
What part of... ''that's what we suspect happened'' didn't you understand?
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Seems a baseless "suspicion" to me. How do you propose a patch "blows off" while inside a tyre? The likelihood of instantaneous deflation (front tyre - sufficient to cause a crash) with that cause is very low: certainly compared to the more likely snakebite puncture (which I've experienced - though don't remember much after an instantaneous expletive - 2 days in ICU).
Inspection of the failed tube will allow reasonable deductions to be made> My tube had a snakebite with two parallel slits each over a centimetre long.
Inspection of the failed tube will allow reasonable deductions to be made> My tube had a snakebite with two parallel slits each over a centimetre long.
Lovacott
Über Member
When I was a London commuter on a Raleigh racing bike, I'd get punctures every week which manifested themselves by making the bike harder to handle as the tyre slowly deflated. I had some pretty quick deflations but I never had a proper blowout. Some of my inner tubes were more patch than original rubber. In dry weather in daylight, I'd do a roadside repair and in wet weather or the dark, I swap out the inner tube and repair the damaged one when I got to work (I'm a glue and patch person and I actually collect old repair kit boxes and I'll post some pictures up later). The repaired tube would then become my spare.
Typical causes of punctures were sharp objects such as glass or slate shards and thorns with the tube damage being limited to a pin prick sized hole.
I always kept the tyres inflated rock hard to mitigate the risk of pinching the tyres on pot holes or kerbs.
All that said, every time I do a downhill stretch at speed, I have it in the back of my head that if I had a proper blow out, I'd be going home in an ambulance.
I always check my tyres before I go out on my bike. A quick spin of each wheel and a visual check for tyre damage or bulging, a quick pinch between thumb and forefinger to roughly check pressure. I rarely check the same things on my car.
overmind
My other bike is a Pinarello
- Location
- Reading, Berkshire
The only scenario I have experienced which has resulted in a blow out was when I had a puncture where the hole in the innertube was more of a gash (say 3mm) than a pin-prick type hole; like from a shard of glass. I attempted to fix this with a big patch but this resulted in a fast puncture very quickly (possibly the same day).
This second puncture was caused by the gash expanding; which undermined the patch covering it, and deflated very quickly. Obviously, the innertube was a write-off after this.
Maybe that is what happened in your case. Based on this experience; whenever I get a puncture of the gash variety I replace the innertube; but most of the time this is not the case.
This second puncture was caused by the gash expanding; which undermined the patch covering it, and deflated very quickly. Obviously, the innertube was a write-off after this.
Maybe that is what happened in your case. Based on this experience; whenever I get a puncture of the gash variety I replace the innertube; but most of the time this is not the case.
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Lovacott
Über Member
Traditional glue on patches become part of the tube as the adhesive creates a solvent weld between the patch and tube. Once set, it's almost impossible to get the two apart.
I always inflate the inner tube with the new patch on to make sure that there is no bulging around the patch. If the tube bulges, it goes in the bin. You can only do this once the adhesive is fully set which is why I prefer the spare tube method for roadside puncture repairs and leave the hole patching for when I get to work/home.
When fitting a tube, I inflate it a bit and then bounce the wheel before inflating it a bit more. This helps to even out the tube within the tyre. Whether or not that is a true fact, I don't know. It's just what I've always done since I was a kid after my dad told me to do it.
overmind
My other bike is a Pinarello
- Location
- Reading, Berkshire
That is interesting. Maybe it was caused by not using enough glue on the patch then; That is possible.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Or a 'glueless' patch, perhaps; but still would result in a slow leak, possibly increasing in pressure loss rate (as opposed to 'blowout'). However in my bad off, I know the tyre was correctly inflated at the start of the 300, but perhaps it had lost pressure over the 199k thus rendering it vulnerable to a snakebite type deflation (fast downhill, slight bend ahead). A month later, when I could drive again, and went to pick up my bike (taken care of by a kind local) I visited the deflation site: no sign of any pothole or other cause.
