Oh for ***** sake! The dust caps.

Fully-sprung

So I was at school again today (probably didn't need to tell you this though) and some t*@ took the back dust cap of my bike and let out about a quarter of the air in the tyre, so I pushed the bike along the bumpy parts of the journey and rode along the smooth parts slowly (still enough air to ride but wanted to avoid getting a pinch-flat) I finaly got home and it took me twice as long as usual. I was just wondering, have any of you found a way to stop this? I'm highly considering buying myself a set of these: http://www.richbrook-styling.co.uk/wheel-valve-caps-valves-tyre-pressure-gauge/spinning-anti-theft-caps/74
off ebay for half the price shown there. Has anyone had any experience with them? I hear they're really good, and with them being for the bike and not a car I can keep 2 for spares. So what do you think? ;-)

Also, post your dust cap stories here to, some of them can be quite interesting, especially when talking to a down to earth group of mountain bikers.

cat_with_no_tail

Just carry a pump?

joshtp

Fully-sprung

Yeah, that is an option, and I'll have to take you up on that one, but I don't have an endless supply of dust caps, and I like the big muddy puddle.
So much for the down to earth bit hey.

cat_with_no_tail

Ohhhhh, didn't realize they'd robbed it. I thought you meant they'd just taken it off, let the tyre down and then put it back.

In that case then, and as you posted this in the crudcatcher, I suggest leaving the pump at home and carrying a big fuckoff d-lock instead and then waiting for the cnuts to try again.

d-lock + cnuts = happytime

joshtp

jay12

not so long ago my mates bike was robbed. the chavs were found by the police and the bike was returned but with one dustcap missing. i mean, come on, taking one dust cap. just shows how effed up people are these days, they need shooting the whole lot of them

Fully-sprung

Not the bike, the dust caps, they nicked the dust caps, it's more of a matter of 'I can't get home as quick if you let my tyres down' than 'it's costing me money' I have the giant f**k off lock, I just want the f**k off dust caps. The problem is there is nobody there to watch the bikes and I'm at the other end of the school at lunch time. And if they let the tyre down I can't go through my favourite puddle:-(
Bike theft stories are good to if you want to post them.
I accidently left my friends bike at the bottom of the road once and a group of people walked by it, so I told my mates dad and we took the car down the road to find the bike dumped on the foot path, how lucky was that?

schmako

Mine seized on to the tube once, was slightly more annoying as they had to be destroyed to be taken off..

Fully-sprung

Schmako wrote:

Mine seized on to the tube once, was slightly more annoying as they had to be destroyed to be taken off..

That would be a handy anti theft idea, hard to do reliably though.

jay12

when you get to school take the dust caps off. keep them in your pocket. if they let the air out just take a pump with you. pump the tyres up and put the caps on for teh ride home.simples

cat_with_no_tail

Just drop owt ov skool.

Itz wot I did an im orsum

Fully-sprung

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Just drop owt ov skool.

Itz wot I did an im orsum

But I'd rather spend a tenner on dusties than have wasted 10 years of my life in school.

cat_with_no_tail

Pffff

Skool iz for foolz innit!

Fully-sprung

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Pffff

Skool iz for foolz innit!

I know, but once you're 10 years in and you got 1 year left, you might as well stick with it.

MountainMonster

Why do you need dust caps for the rims? I only use mine cause their bling!

Richie63

I've an interesting dust cap story

once I was putting on a dust cap and it was on one of those fat valves not the thin ones you sometimes get , you know the ones that look like one you find on a car but it was on a bike that I had but not my race bike 'cause that has the thin ones that don't look like they come on a car at least not the car I have, as an aside do bigger cars have really big valves and dust caps ? Anyway back to my interesting story , as I was putting on this dust cap and mind you it was a fat one it screwed right down and the end of it was hanging off like a little cap.

njee20

Just don't use valve caps and carry a pump? Not really a difficult solution... If you're worried about crap in the valves just use prestas, chances are the idiots won't know how to let air out anyway.

cat_with_no_tail

Richie63 wrote:

I've an interesting dust cap story

once I was putting on a dust cap and it was on one of those fat valves not the thin ones you sometimes get , you know the ones that look like one you find on a car but it was on a bike that I had but not my race bike 'cause that has the thin ones that don't look like they come on a car at least not the car I have, as an aside do bigger cars have really big valves and dust caps ? Anyway back to my interesting story , as I was putting on this dust cap and mind you it was a fat one it screwed right down and the end of it was hanging off like a little cap.

El Capitano

jay12 wrote:

when you get to school take the dust caps off. keep them in your pocket. if they let the air out just take a pump with you. pump the tyres up and put the caps on for teh ride home.simples

This.

Oh, and still find out who did it and d-lock them...

Fully-sprung

Richie63 wrote:

I've an interesting dust cap story

once I was putting on a dust cap and it was on one of those fat valves not the thin ones you sometimes get , you know the ones that look like one you find on a car but it was on a bike that I had but not my race bike 'cause that has the thin ones that don't look like they come on a car at least not the car I have, as an aside do bigger cars have really big valves and dust caps ? Anyway back to my interesting story , as I was putting on this dust cap and mind you it was a fat one it screwed right down and the end of it was hanging off like a little cap.

WOW! What an exiting story! Bloody brilliant!
I can't use the presta valves because I like to use the same pump for all bikes, and I have 4 new inner-tubes with car valves on to.

El Capitano

So, you want interesting Dust Cap stories?

Okay, here goes....Once upon a time, my NRS was a heavy bike. A very heavy bike. It's dust caps weighed a massive 3 gramms! That's 3 gramms too much!



So, I searched high and low, for some dust caps that would suit my needs. I needed something pimp, something cool. What I needed was some KCNC ones. In black, made of pure awesome and weigh nothing!

mak3m

I'm a Sunderland lad and went to Sunderland uni with a local accent

So came out the engineering school late one night I was surprised to see a chav fidling with the back wheel of a loced up bike

Me: what you upto mate
Chav: lol letting some cnut tyre down, you
Me: oh just waiting for some Cnut to GTFO of my bike before I rip his head off

I swear he squealed and legged it

Fully-sprung

mak3m wrote:

I'm a Sunderland lad and went to Sunderland uni with a local accent

So came out the engineering school late one night I was surprised to see a chav fidling with the back wheel of a loced up bike

Me: what you upto mate
Chav: lol letting some cnut tyre down, you
Me: oh just waiting for some Cnut to GTFO of my bike before I rip his head off

I swear he squealed and legged it

See, now we have a real interesting story. Glad you did that, they need teaching a lesson.
And El Capitano, you're obsessed! I could make them old ones weigh nothing to! Put them on the scales, then press the tare button. You could make your whole bike weigh nothing with this method! Nice dust caps by the way, can I nick them, I mean borrow them?

yoohoo999

you better hope those lads from school don't find out you've been on an interwebbo bicycle forum whinging about your dust caps getting nicked, otherwise you're gonna get a pasting at school tomorrow.

If it was me i would smear my dustcaps in dog poo. just enough so that they can't see it, but can smell it on their fingers for the rest of the day. seriously.

Richie63

Fully-sprung wrote:

Richie63 wrote:

I've an interesting dust cap story

once I was putting on a dust cap and it was on one of those fat valves not the thin ones you sometimes get , you know the ones that look like one you find on a car but it was on a bike that I had but not my race bike 'cause that has the thin ones that don't look like they come on a car at least not the car I have, as an aside do bigger cars have really big valves and dust caps ? Anyway back to my interesting story , as I was putting on this dust cap and mind you it was a fat one it screwed right down and the end of it was hanging off like a little cap.

WOW! What an exiting story! Bloody brilliant!
I can't use the presta valves because I like to use the same pump for all bikes, and I have 4 new inner-tubes with car valves on to.

Well thankyou for accepting my interesting story in that manner it means so much that I will try to acknowledge this level of story telling and reproduce such a tale to my fellow drinking and riding buddies whenever they are feeling down I am sure it will raise their spirits no end especially when I tell them how much you liked it, it is so heart warming to hear such nice things from a fellow Human .

On a small side issue i do believe that one pump can fit all and even the foot pump that I have duck-taped to my bike (which is from Halfords ) has a small packet of adaptors one of which can blow footballs up.

Fully-sprung

yoohoo999 wrote:

you better hope those lads from school don't find out you've been on an interwebbo bicycle forum whinging about your dust caps getting nicked, otherwise you're gonna get a pasting at school tomorrow.

If it was me i would smear my dustcaps in dog poo. just enough so that they can't see it, but can smell it on their fingers for the rest of the day. seriously.

Do you really think this generation of school people are smart enough to realise I am plotting against them all? I don't either. When I was pushing my bike out of school today one person said to me ;why are you pushing your bike?'
I said 'coz the tyre's flat'
He said 'let's see'
So I pushed down on the saddle to show how the back tyre was soft and he said to me 'that's not the tyre that's the suspension'
So I told him that he should have been looking at the tyre instead of staring into space and walked off. Stupid idiot. Does he really think I can't tell when the tyre is flat on my own bike?
And Richie63, the pump I have can be adapted for presta valves but I lost the instructions and I have all inner-tubes with car valves on any way. And I'm sure your mates will love it when you tell them the story.

mudsucker

If it was me i would smear my dustcaps in dog poo. just enough so that they can't see it, but can smell it on their fingers for the rest of the day. seriously.

This.

Yes put something sticky on the caps like that anti climb paint. Whoever touches them gets mucky hands. Or even better glue razor blades to then

cat_with_no_tail

Are you sure your tyre was flat and it wasn't just the suspension then?

I once thought I had a flat, turns out I'd parked on someones dog.

This other time, I thought I had a hole in my shoe but I was wearing flip flops.

Fully-sprung

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Are you sure your tyre was flat and it wasn't just the suspension then?

I once thought I had a flat, turns out I'd parked on someones dog.

This other time, I thought I had a hole in my shoe but I was wearing flip flops.

No, it was definitely flat, it had JUST enough pressure in to allow me to ride it on the down hill section without risking a pinch-flat, it was like riding on a sheet of ice though, the difference a bit of air makes hey. Hold on, you parked on a dog?

Richie63

I do hope you didn't misunderstand my ramblings earlier I do so get carried away . So I will make this brief. I was refering to the footpump that I have being from Halfords the bike is from somewhere else entirely . Well that's not quite true upon reflection I think that the frame is English ( be Proud stand up for the Queen) and the wheels are from some foreign land so when I said entirely above it wasn't quite right I do say sorry for misleading you this way.

As far as the pump usage I find that a good case of trial and error is usually sufficient to achieve the correct filling and pumping action when using different valve types. There is a FAQ section where it may be possible to find a lengthly discourse by Nicklouse on the use of pumps and valve identification this is to be found in the techy section.

Hope this is some use.