Fixing flat tires. - CycleBlaze

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Fixing flat tires.

Kelly Iniguez

I think as a group, touring cyclists HAVE to carry tools to fix and flat and be able to use them. Perhaps our sampling of riders here skews the base for my question. I've spent a majority of the winter in Tucson, riding The Loop (~135 miles of bike path nirvana. 

Occasionally I see people with bike trouble, most typically flat tires. Yesterday a young man passed me on a dead end spur, saying hello. Soon he was on his way back, raising his hand, and saying hello again. Just as he raised his hand, he clipped a small rock in the path, causing his handlebars to swerve. He almost lost control, but saved himself. We both continued on. I was soon on the way back myself, and the young man was stopped in the road. The rock had caused a front flat tire. I felt somewhat responsible in the incident. I asked if he had  a tube, etc. Yes he did. But he didn't want to take off the (front) wheel and have to pump it up with a hand pump (gasp!). Instead he was calling an Uber. Ah, is that the modern, urban solution to flat tires?  What happens when he gets home? Does he fix the flat or take it to the shop? My LBS charges $25. to fix a flat, plus the cost of the tube. Troy says flat tires are a fair amount of his business. 

Today, I saw a couple stopped by a road connector, on Drexel Road for those of you familiar with the area. If it's your first time through, it can be a little confusing. I stopped to offer navigation assistance. No, the husband had a flat tire, they were deciding on the closest cross road where the wife could drive and pick him up. They were on skinny tire bikes, I definitely didn't have a tube that would work for them. I didn't ask if they had tools to fix a flat, as they obviously already had a solution that worked for them.

Last winter I met a pretty young woman walking on Look type cleats. She had a flat and was walking to the nearest convenience store for her boyfriend to pick her up. It was quite a hike from where she was. She obviously carried nothing but a water bottle on her sleek bike.

Those are all examples that come quickly to my mind. Are we dinosaurs because we can and do fix flats? Is it a matter of knowledge or willingness? I'm not a mechanic, but a flat is one thing I can do. It seems to be a necessity to me. Perhaps not.

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11 months ago
Wayne EstesTo Kelly Iniguez

This web site is populated by people who do multi-day bike trips. People who do multi-day trips almost always have a mindset of self-sufficiency.

People who go for a short ride on the local bike path have a very different mindset. I would still want the ability to repair simple problems such as a flat tire or loose bolt. But it's not strictly necessary if you have a wireless phone, reliable wireless service, and somebody nearby to rescue you.

Maybe calling an UBER or your partner for every little problem is sustainable for these people if it only happens once or twice a year. Or maybe the people you describe are new to cycling and just haven't thought about simple things they can do to be more self-sufficient. Or maybe they are so determined to be ultra-light that inability to repair anything is a worthwhile tradeoff for them. At least they are out there cycling.

My standard for self-sufficiency has evolved over the years as wireless phones became ubiquitous and I got older. A couple months ago I called my wife to rescue me for the first time ever because a very worn tire self-destructed.

I think you do pose an interesting question. What portion of cycling enthusiasts nowadays are able and willing to repair a flat tire?

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11 months ago
Brent IrvineTo Kelly Iniguez

On tour I definitely come prepared - spare tube, patch kit - and do the repairs myself either on the road or in my accommodations at night. At home, though, I carry my mobile phone but no means of repair. I'd call home to he picked up if I had a flat. I have to say that having switched to Schwalbe Marathon Plus a few years back I 'never' get flat tires so it is pretty much a non-issue for me.

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11 months ago
Kirsten KaarsooTo Kelly Iniguez

I agree that most multi day tour participants want to be self sufficient and would change their own tire. I usually replace the tube and then patch the leaking one at a later date. This way my ride is not overly interrupted. 

However, I was out for a short ride on my road bike to Banff and back and on my way home I got a flat. I repaired it but joked to my husband Lyle that should something ever happen to him and I wanted to meet cyclists, I should just go on legacy trail and get a flat. 😉 I had no less than three young (35-40 ish) fit young men stop and offer to help me repair my tire. I said no thank you but I appreciated the offer. Saying that, if it was my touring bike I would have needed help as I have the same issue as Susan Carpenter experienced in not having enough strength to get the tire back on the rim. 

So this a long way of saying that these younger people who stopped for me knew how to change a tire. As to whether they would do it for themselves I don’t know but it was kind of them to offer to help an older lady. 

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11 months ago
Mike AylingTo Kirsten Kaarsoo

Our riding group sometimes uses theLilydale to Warburton Rail Trail. This about 40km each way and was the first Rail Trail in Victoria and possibly in Australia. Anywayone Sunday our group of > 60 year old riders encountered two damsels in distress if fortyish females can still be classified as damsels.

Anyway on a Sunday morning we encountered them walking with lightly loaded panniers on the way back after overnighting in Warburton. Of course we stopped and found that they did not have a spare tube, tyre levers, or pump. The rider of the bike in question did have the key to unlock her through axle and the bike shop had instructed her in its use so the wheel was quickly removed and the tube extracted. Passing the re-inflated tube near the face did not result in discovery of the leak but fortunately a nearby creek had overflowed its banks during recent rains and there was a decent puddle still there to immerse the tube and discover the leak.The tube was dried and a glueless patch was quickly applied.Meanwhile other members of the team had inspected the tyre for foreign bodies and not found any so the tube was re-installed and inflated with my trusty Zefal HPX #4 pump. The ladies told us that they would have to had walked a further 8km to where their car was parked. I hope that they will be better prepared if they do ant more touring rides.

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11 months ago
George HallTo Kelly Iniguez

I keep a spare tube and repair kit and tools in a saddle bag.  When I'm on tour, the saddle bag goes on my touring bike - when I'm home, the saddle bag is mounted to my daily rider/training bike (which just happens to also be a touring bike, but a bit lighter and not quite as well kitted out as my main touring bike).  So I always have a spare tube and basic tools with me, even when I'm just riding one of my local training/recreational rides.  A few months back I had a flat when I was finishing a ride and was only 3 miles from home - because I was so close and had things I needed to get home for, I called the wife to rescue me and fixed the flat later when convenient.  If I had been on my once-a-week long ride I could have been much further from home and I would have just changed out the tube - it would have been faster for me to change the tube out than to call for rescue, and of course I would have wanted to complete the ride anyway.   So that's how I roll.  

Since I commenced using "real" touring tires (Panaracer Tourgard Plus in my case) I rarely get flats anyway.  How rarely?  Well, I rode the ACA Western Express on those tires without a flat while my 2 riding partners each got 1 flat - I rode the ACA Northern Tier and the ACA Great Rivers South also on those tires without a flat.  Those were all loaded self-supported tours, although I only carried camping gear on the Northern Tier.  To be clear; I rode the Western Express on a different set of tires than I rode on the Northern Tier and Great Rivers South (but it was the sme brand).   So if one rides the "plus" version of touring tires with the inner flat-prevention layer, flats aren't very likely - they can and will still happen, but it becomes a rare occurrence. 

I live in an area of Tulsa that is popular for cyclists, especially so on the weekends.  Last Saturday I had headed out for a 30-mile ride (sad to say, but at the moment that is my current once-weekly "long" ride distance), and I noticed a large group of cyclists catching me from behind.  That's not unusual - the club riders come out in groups of around 20 riding fast in a paceline on lightweight bikes wearing colorful lycra and spandex - I'm sure they think I'm some sort of cycling newbie on my bike with fenders and dressed in a long-sleeve fishing shirt with lightweight hoodie to ward off the UV rays and knee-high compression socks.   But I digress - back to the story which is somewhat relevant to the theme of this thread - as the peleton whizzed past on their way to glory, one rider dropped back to me and asked if I had any allen wrenches.  I keep a multi-tool in the saddle bag, and it had the 5mm he needed to adjust his seat.   So these folks are riding $5,000 (and more) carbon fiber bikes with electronic shifting but don't even carry simple tools because that adds a few ounces.  Gee whiz - I was glad I could help, and just as soon as we were done he sprinted off to catch the group.    

The "weekend warrior" club riders have a different mindset than most of us who do long cycle tours.  Their goal is to prepare to ride a fast time on the Tour de Tulsa, or the Tulsa Tough, or other such sponsored and supported rides that occur here throughout the year.  Those events are heavily supported with several rest/refreshment stops and mechanic help available all along the route.  I belong to a club in Tulsa that puts on a couple of rides yearly, so I get it.  I was once like those folks, but I evolved and moved on.  Is that a snobbish thing to say?   Maybe it is - whatever - but it's how I feel.

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11 months ago
Bill StoneTo Kelly Iniguez

Flats? I hate 'em. Hate to fix 'em, especially on the road. But I do it when needed, which fortunately isn't too often on my Schwalbes. 

A couple of weeks ago -- for the first time in my life -- I had simultaneous flats front and rear. I almost phoned my ace support crew (also known as my wife) and begged her to come rescue me, but I sat in the dirt and repaired them. My language during the repair process was not something my dear mother would have approved.

On the other hand, I recall two separate occasions when I've suffered a flat coupled with equipment failure making repair impossible. The first time I pushed the bike until I eventually met another cyclist who loaned me his pump. The second time I had to put my thumb out and hitchhike back to my car.

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11 months ago
Mike AylingTo Kelly Iniguez

Kelly

60 years ago when I was a young bloke a lot of people used to repair their own cars and bikes because they could. Cars were a lot simpler and you did not have to plug them into computers to diagnose faults. Also you had the time and were not expected to work 60 hour weeks. Now many are time poor and comparatively asset rich so can afford to pay somebody to repair their bikes. Now  as you wrote we can call for help on our mobile phones and an Uber is never far away unless you are touring in remote areas so no real need to be able to repair a puncture.

Meanwhile bike tyre technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the last thirty years or so and a lot of lightweight  modern tyres as well as the heavy Schwalbe Marathons favoured by some on this site are reasonably puncture proof and are favoured by  the touring community. Some, such as Schwalbe Supremes  are too light as well as being robust which is probably why  Schwalbe has discontinued their production. When we get to entry level bikes the manufacturers tend to include reasonable group sets at their price points and fit the cheapest tyres that they can find. These tyres are not as puncture resistant as the better quality ones and we see a lot of beginner riders on these bikes suffering punctures.

Modern aluminium and carbon frames don't really accommodate traditional frame pumps so yet another reason for people not being able to repair punctures.

Of course there are the CO2 cartridges which can be used by the road bike community for tyre inflation before being discarded at the road side, sometimes together with a lightly used discarded tube.

I seem to have strayed off topic a bit so I had better stop!

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11 months ago
Scott AndersonTo Kelly Iniguez

I’m really technically incompetent, and I view it as one of my responsibilities in life to help keep LBS’s in business.  I can at least fix flats though, and unless I’ve really screwed up I’ve always got repair materials and a functioning pump with me.  It always delights me to come across someone by the side of the road in need of a pump and be able to help them out.  

That said, I of course hate changing flats on the road.  My first line of defense is to try pumping it up and hoping it will hold long enough to get home, even if I have to repeat it a half dozen times.  Failing that, I’ll pull the tube and put in a new one; and as a really last resort, patch the tube on the road.  With as few flats with our Schwalbe Marathons as we tend to get, it’s probably been several years since I’ve had to patch the tube to get home.

Rachael carries her own complete set of equipment too, mostly as a backup for mine in case my pump fails or I’ve forgotten something.  They’re also there in case she has a flat when she’s riding on her own and can get lucky enough to be saved by some young buck passing by. It’s quite hard to remove and reseat the Marathons on her 20” wheels, and I don’t think she has the technique or hand strength to change one herself.  

I can recall at least once though when I was unable to repair a flat on Rachael’s bike because I couldn’t get the tire off the rim and broke the tire irons trying.  We were in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and fortunately a couple stopped to bail us out by driving Rachael and her bike the ten miles back to our hotel in Foix while I biked home alone.  We’ve since gotten Mr. Tuffy levers which are pretty indestructible, so I don’t think that will happen again.

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11 months ago
Andrea BrownTo Kelly Iniguez

Scott is right, repairing flats on 20-inch tires is nightmare fuel, especially with Marathon Pluses, which are stiff with a wire bead. That being said, the only flat we've had to repair on 4 bike tours (5-6000 miles?) was on a beach road in Vietnam, and it wasn't a puncture, it was a tube failure along a seam. Our tires are heavy but I'll take that over changing a tire along the roadside, the Pluses are doing their job. 

In Oregon, AAA (a national chain of road repair services) will help you if you are out on your bike and have problems, if you're a member, of course. One day at work I noticed I had a flat (funky tires, pre-Schwalbe). So I called AAA. I was hoping they would change the tire for me but noooooo, they sent a flatbed tow truck that could easily have carried my house on its back. It was hilarious to hand up a folded Bike Friday to stash behind the passenger seat, climb up ten feet into the air, and wave down at my students waiting for their bus ride home. Talk about overkill. But it was fun and I was grateful for a solution and I fixed the g.d. tire at home in the comfort of the warm, dry, dining room.

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11 months ago