tubular
Whilst riding to work on Tuesday I ran into some problems with my track bike. I was riding nice and easy, taking my time and enjoying the morning. Made a left turn onto this side-road and the rear of the bike felt really squirly. Look down and see a flat rear tyre. Not good!
Seeing as my track bike has tubular tyres (aka: sew-ups) I couldn't just put a new tube in and be on my way. I also didn't have a spare tire with me. Time for a nice walk home. 30mins later I'm home. Immediately pulled the tyre off rim to figure out where the hole was. Sounded like the valve core so I started pulling up the base tape to reveal a section about 4inches from the valve core to be the culprit. The outer casing and tread looked great so I was perplexed as to how I could have gotten a flat.
Did some research the past few days and figured out how to repair a tubular. Out comes the x-acto blade to cut some of the stitching back. Made myself about a 1inch hole to pull the tube out of. Found my problem. Looks like an impact flat from the spoke hole in the rim.
What? How is that possible? Well, I checked the air pressure in my front tyre and it was at 80psi. Assuming the rear was the same, then that's too low for riding around town with a messenger bag full of garb.
All patched up!
I took some regular thread for my clothes since that is all I had and stitched up the hole. My stitches were half that of the rest of the tyre since the thread I had wasn't as thick and durable.
I carried the existing thread through so it was held together. It was scary stitching this up. I was paranoid I'd catch the tube inside the tyre casing.
Base tape glued back on. She's a good to go!
All fixed! Now I can ride to work tomorrow.
Seeing as my track bike has tubular tyres (aka: sew-ups) I couldn't just put a new tube in and be on my way. I also didn't have a spare tire with me. Time for a nice walk home. 30mins later I'm home. Immediately pulled the tyre off rim to figure out where the hole was. Sounded like the valve core so I started pulling up the base tape to reveal a section about 4inches from the valve core to be the culprit. The outer casing and tread looked great so I was perplexed as to how I could have gotten a flat.
Did some research the past few days and figured out how to repair a tubular. Out comes the x-acto blade to cut some of the stitching back. Made myself about a 1inch hole to pull the tube out of. Found my problem. Looks like an impact flat from the spoke hole in the rim.
What? How is that possible? Well, I checked the air pressure in my front tyre and it was at 80psi. Assuming the rear was the same, then that's too low for riding around town with a messenger bag full of garb.
All patched up!
I took some regular thread for my clothes since that is all I had and stitched up the hole. My stitches were half that of the rest of the tyre since the thread I had wasn't as thick and durable.
I carried the existing thread through so it was held together. It was scary stitching this up. I was paranoid I'd catch the tube inside the tyre casing.
Base tape glued back on. She's a good to go!
All fixed! Now I can ride to work tomorrow.
posted by dougyfresh at 10:34 PM
2 Comments:
I commute on tubulars too.
I fill them with 25 ml of Stan's sealant. This has worked great for me.
Currently I'm running Tufo's which are a tubeless design, but it has worked with a conventional tubed tubular too ( fun with alliteration). One time with a conventional tubular I picked up a piece of glass in Simsbury, and lost about half my air before the Stan's did it's thing. Picked out the glass, pumped it up, good to go.
Nice pics!
Love some of the American roads. Nice shoulders etc...
Man, I hope you guys look after America.
Just come up to Canada sometime if you want some crap roads to ride on.
Lance came up about a month back he stated "I have riden on lots of roads and even in third world countries, but I have never seen anything as bad as this"
It's the truth. The roads up here just suck big time.
I admire the roads you folks have down there. Nice shoulders for cyclists.
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