Lesson learnt!

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Thorn Sherpa

Thorn Sherpa

Veteran
Location
Doncaster
After a night shift I head back to the bike shed, unlock the bike turn the lights on, helmet on and get ready to head home or so I thought! Jump on the bike ready to set off and that horrible feeling when the rear tire is as flat as a pancake :sad:. No major dilemma I thought being the 1st puncture (or possible sabotage knowing my work mates!) of the year I'll just pump it up and if it's a slow puncture hopefully get home on it. That's when I realised I'd left my pump at home :blush: for whatever reason when clearing out the panniers I'd not put the pump back in! So a nice 4.5 mile walk with the bike to the train station and a train home it was then needless to say the pump is now in my bag! Had to laugh at the SOS button on the train where my bike was kept pretty much hit the nail on the head this morning!
Lesson learnt!

Lesson learnt!

Who else has been caught out recently?
 
gom

gom

Über Member
Location
Gloucestershire
After a light breakfast I did 20m to coffee stop and found no money. On my own so no one to scrounge off. So back home with only a Werthers Original to sustain me.
I used to keep £20 in the tool bag for just such a case, but not that day.
So I now have money in the tools, my phone case, and have started to use Apple Pay. Forgot my wallet again a couple of weeks ago and just laughed.
 
hoopdriver

hoopdriver

Guru
Location
East Sussex
This isn't recent but about 25 years ago when I was cycling to the office every day in Melbourne, I decided to blow off work one fine morning and pedal down the coast, to the tip of the Mornington Peninsula. Which I did. I called in sick - guiltily, because I'd never pulled a stunt like this before - from a payphone in Frankston and went my merry way down the coast. I had a glorious day. Fish and chips at a seaside cafe and then rode the rest of the way down to Cape Schanck - then a remote headland on the seaward side of the peninsula. It was late by then and I had a long way to ride back to Frankston where I planned to catch the train the rest of the say home. When I saddled up to start the long lonely ride to Frankston I saw I had a flat. No big deal. I fixed it. Went twenty metres and it was flat again. Fixed it again, cursing my rotten luck - and being prone to guilt, feeling this was karmic comeuppance for playing hooky. When the tyre went flat a third time in a few metres I grew worried enough to take a close look and found that my rear tyre was shot completely. I had nothing I could use for a boot, no hope of repair, the nearest town was eight lonely miles away and most unlikely to have a bike shop, even if I could walk there before dark. To say I felt despair would be putting it mildly.

Just as I was beginning the long lonely trudge, feeling that Karma and the puritan work ethic had really caught up with me this time, a car rose over the hill behind me - the first car I'd seen in ages. It pulled over. It had a bicycle rack on the back - I am not kidding. And it was driven by a young Catholic priest. He hopped out, looked at my tyre and said: looks pretty final to me. How about I give you a ride to Frankston?

Two hours later I was home and hosed, cooking up some pasta, and smiling to myself about the age-old secret I had been let into: God really does look after drunks, children and tramp cyclists...
 
D

Deleted member 1258

Guest
Last summer, flat rear tyre, went into my saddlebag for my spare tube and tools and the spare tube was missing, managed to get a patch on it, tube had split at the site of a previous puncture. When I got home the spare tube was on the floor of the shed, it must have fallen out when I got the bike out.
 
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Thorn Sherpa

Thorn Sherpa

Veteran
Location
Doncaster
dave r said:
Last summer, flat rear tyre, went into my saddlebag for my spare tube and tools and the spare tube was missing, managed to get a patch on it, tube had split at the site of a previous puncture. When I got home the spare tube was on the floor of the shed, it must have fallen out when I got the bike out.
Click to expand...
I had all the gear but no pump to blow it back up! When I got home the pump was literally 4ft from the front door :laugh:
 
D

Deleted member 1258

Guest
Thorn Sherpa said:
I had all the gear but no pump to blow it back up! When I got home the pump was literally 4ft from the front door :laugh:
Click to expand...

Luckely I'd got a puncture kit so I could patch it, the tube had split under the patch at the site of a puncture I'd patched a long time ago and I had to find one of the large patches in the kit to sort it. I think not having the kit can be a problem sometimes these days because most of us get so few punctures that the kit sits in the saddle bag so long between uses that parts of it can get lost or the glue can dry up.
 
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S

slow scot

Veteran
Location
Aberdeen
hoopdriver said:
This isn't recent but about 25 years ago when I was cycling to the office every day in Melbourne, I decided to blow off work one fine morning and pedal down the coast, to the tip of the Mornington Peninsula. Which I did. I called in sick - guiltily, because I'd never pulled a stunt like this before - from a payphone in Frankston and went my merry way down the coast. I had a glorious day. Fish and chips at a seaside cafe and then rode the rest of the way down to Cape Schanck - then a remote headland on the seaward side of the peninsula. It was late by then and I had a long way to ride back to Frankston where I planned to catch the train the rest of the say home. When I saddled up to start the long lonely ride to Frankston I saw I had a flat. No big deal. I fixed it. Went twenty metres and it was flat again. Fixed it again, cursing my rotten luck - and being prone to guilt, feeling this was karmic comeuppance for playing hooky. When the tyre went flat a third time in a few metres I grew worried enough to take a close look and found that my rear tyre was shot completely. I had nothing I could use for a boot, no hope of repair, the nearest town was eight lonely miles away and most unlikely to have a bike shop, even if I could walk there before dark. To say I felt despair would be putting it mildly.

Just as I was beginning the long lonely trudge, feeling that Karma and the puritan work ethic had really caught up with me this time, a car rose over the hill behind me - the first car I'd seen in ages. It pulled over. It had a bicycle rack on the back - I am not kidding. And it was driven by a young Catholic priest. He hopped out, looked at my tyre and said: looks pretty final to me. How about I give you a ride to Frankston?

Two hours later I was home and hosed, cooking up some pasta, and smiling to myself about the age-old secret I had been let into: God really does look after drunks, children and tramp cyclists...
Click to expand...
Ah, memories! In 1970 two mates and I ran from Portsea out to Cape Schanck and back. Deserted beach and sand dunes then. Beautiful part of the world.
 
GuyBoden

GuyBoden

Guru
Location
Warrington
Big problem, I think if you're using Marathon+ tyres there is a good chance that you might forget how to fix punctures..............

I'm trying to remember to check the spare tubes in the saddle bag every few weeks. I'd like to pump them up and check the saddle bag tools, if I remember. :sad:
 
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Thorn Sherpa

Thorn Sherpa

Veteran
Location
Doncaster
GuyBoden said:
Big problem, I think if you're using Marathon+ tyres there is a good chance that you might forget how to fix punctures..............

I'm trying to remember to check the spare tubes in the saddle bag every few weeks. I'd like to pump them up and check the saddle bag tools, if I remember. :sad:
Click to expand...
Your not far wrong I can't remember the last time I actually had a puncture. I've been using M+ for a few years now and yesterday was the first time I'd had a puncture
 
Ajax Bay

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
Thorn Sherpa said:
That's when I realised I'd left my pump at home :blush: for whatever reason when clearing out the panniers I'd not put the pump back in!
Click to expand...
A lesson is not learnt until a change (in this case, the rider checking they are carrying essential items) is made. Till then it's a 'lesson identified'.
Drove past (then stopped and went back), a guy yesterday who was sitting by the road, bike on the ground. He had had a puncture, had replaced the tube, only to find that one 'failed'. I didn't have my bike with me so could not solve that and "his missus was coming out to pick [him] up" so he refused my offer of a lift.
Add patches to his check list, perhaps.
 
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