Visit from th P Fairy (WARNING: contains some swearing)
pottssteve
Posts: 4,069
Right,
So I drag my fcuking arse out of bed at 5am this morning to get a couple of hours riding in before the heat and the crappy traffic gets too bad. I'm 15km into a 60km loop, all going smoothly, along one of the quietest, most isolated roads in HK, doing about 50kph downhill when the back wheel goes all mushy. (I ride a cyclocross bike so you don't get the "pfssttt" sound as the tyre pressure is lower).
Dismount to find it is indeed a rear wheel p*******. This is my first p*******, having started riding at Christmas, so it's going to be a challenge. I am fully prepared with spare inner tube, pump, multitool.
Thanks to Bikeradar and other sources of information, I know what to do; click into small cog, unhook brake, undo skewer, hey presto! Wheel off, I peel the tyre away and take out the tube. My God, it's all going so well! I even remember to feel around the tyre for the cause of the flat and find a HUGE, SHARP B@STARD thorn embedded in the tyre. This takes some getting out but I manage it. New inner tube in, tyre back on (with a bit of difficulty), start to inflate. Get to about 1 bar and the tyre goes FLAT again!! Mmmmm, wonder what's causing that? On closer inspection it turns out that the VALVE HAS SEPARATED FROM THE NEW INNER TUBE. THE TUBE HAS PERISHED. :shock:
AND I DON'T HAVE ANOTHER FUPPING TUBE!!! I only bought it 6 months ago. So, just as I'm re-attaching the rear wheel a cyclist pulls up and offers help, but he's only got 20mm inner tubes; too small for my tyres. By now it's 29 degrees and I'm trudging along the road (luckily I wear SPD shoes) the 5km to the nearest village and a HK public hire minibus goes past. I flag him down and start to get in and he says I can come in BUT NOT THE BIKE as it will get the b@astard van dirty!!! :evil:
I got home at about 8am having hailed a (luckily) passing taxi (which cost me 10 quid), and having ridden 15km in two and a half hours!
I'm off to my LBS soon to have a chat about their inner tubes!!! :x
So I drag my fcuking arse out of bed at 5am this morning to get a couple of hours riding in before the heat and the crappy traffic gets too bad. I'm 15km into a 60km loop, all going smoothly, along one of the quietest, most isolated roads in HK, doing about 50kph downhill when the back wheel goes all mushy. (I ride a cyclocross bike so you don't get the "pfssttt" sound as the tyre pressure is lower).
Dismount to find it is indeed a rear wheel p*******. This is my first p*******, having started riding at Christmas, so it's going to be a challenge. I am fully prepared with spare inner tube, pump, multitool.
Thanks to Bikeradar and other sources of information, I know what to do; click into small cog, unhook brake, undo skewer, hey presto! Wheel off, I peel the tyre away and take out the tube. My God, it's all going so well! I even remember to feel around the tyre for the cause of the flat and find a HUGE, SHARP B@STARD thorn embedded in the tyre. This takes some getting out but I manage it. New inner tube in, tyre back on (with a bit of difficulty), start to inflate. Get to about 1 bar and the tyre goes FLAT again!! Mmmmm, wonder what's causing that? On closer inspection it turns out that the VALVE HAS SEPARATED FROM THE NEW INNER TUBE. THE TUBE HAS PERISHED. :shock:
AND I DON'T HAVE ANOTHER FUPPING TUBE!!! I only bought it 6 months ago. So, just as I'm re-attaching the rear wheel a cyclist pulls up and offers help, but he's only got 20mm inner tubes; too small for my tyres. By now it's 29 degrees and I'm trudging along the road (luckily I wear SPD shoes) the 5km to the nearest village and a HK public hire minibus goes past. I flag him down and start to get in and he says I can come in BUT NOT THE BIKE as it will get the b@astard van dirty!!! :evil:
I got home at about 8am having hailed a (luckily) passing taxi (which cost me 10 quid), and having ridden 15km in two and a half hours!
I'm off to my LBS soon to have a chat about their inner tubes!!! :x
Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs
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Comments
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Well that sucks.0
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Ouch.But the 20mm tube probably would have been alright, though, expanding to fill a bigger tyre. But you didn't want to hear that. (/ducks heavy thing thrown from HK)0
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Were your innertubes made in Hong Kong
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Wappygixer wrote:Were your innertubes made in Hong Kong
No, they were made in fcuking Thailand! I've just ordered some Contis from Wiggle!!!Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs0 -
Oops - thats cycling. Move to Scotland, I have a route locally where I might see a car or two if i'm unlucky.
Now, after puncturing 3 times on the Etape Caledonia due to some narrow minded behaviour from a councillor (yes: a councillor), I decided to splash out on some latex inner tubes. Great offer, great price. Forgot to look at the sizes though. Got the tubes and noticed they were for 700x20c. I have 23mm tyres. It worked anyway.
Years ago, a friend of mine had umpteenth puncture after failing to bunny hop a cattle grid and we had run out of inner tubes. Stuffed tyre with straw. A little old fellow popped out of his farmhouse and said "you need hay boy". So we took the straw out and he proceeded to stuff tyre with hay, carefully pulling out long strands and twisting them to roughly the same diameter as the tyre. Surprisingly good and worth the effort as a taxi from where we were would have cost more like 35quid.
See - there are options.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0
