Bicycle Puncture Repaired (2nd May 2009)
A lame thing about riding a bicycle off-road is getting slow punctures. It was some hours after my long ride to nowhere that dad mentioned my rear tyre was flat.
Hadn’t noticed it whilst riding. Thought the ride back home was a harder slog than usual but figured that was due to my injuries.
The Repair
Managed to remove the tyre and inner tube from the rim by hand without unbolting the wheel.
Using water from a nearby bucket, I to tried and find the leak. Could hear it find but nothing was bubbling as I ran my finger over the rubber. Eventually realised I had the direction of the sound correct but the leak was 180° away, on the other side of the tube. About 26″ away!
Found plenty of repair kits in the silver box by the big compressor in dad’s home workshop. One already had an open glue so I used that and an opened tape of patches.
The Reward
Dad was coming back from work with pizza, so I took a quick ride down to the woods. Rode over some bumpy gravel, some roots and did a few ditch crossings. All seemed fine and it was nearly 6pm, so I decided to head home.
Was all packed up and ready to eat just as the pizza was being served up. I had a foil bag of spicey chicken wings with lashings of barbeque sauce washed down by a glass of Pepsi Max. Yummy!