OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS

 Last Saturday I was ready to leave for the Trek Parmer Pedaler ride at 9:00am.  It had been a week since airing up the tires, so at 8:15 I pulled the front tire out of the car (the bike being already loaded) and took it inside to pump it up.  It showed sixty pounds, so my thinking it needed air was correct.  Since I had a few more minutes before leaving, I went ahead and pulled the bike out of the car in order to air the back tire.  Pook, ding-fu!  The back tire was flat.  Normally it takes me fifteen minutes to change out a tube because I take my time.  That would put me late for the start.

Last October I posted my formula for correctly changing a tube, something I repost periodically.  We will get to that shortly, but I took a few shortcuts and got the tube changed out in record time and made it on time to the ride.  But without a spare tube in the saddle pack.  Fortunately, I didn't need one.  Later that evening I got around to doing a post-mortem on the offending tube.  It took dunking in water to find the pinhole.  I always recommend finding the hole before installing the replacement, because that gives you an idea where to look on the tire to see if the cause is still embedded and ready to prick the next tube.  But I digress.

In opening my tube repair kit I saw that I only had larger size patches and try as I might, the edges would have to wrap around the tube.  BTW, Park Tools has an excellent video on how to change a tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0F_hibWHlU) .  Using the patch, I glued it on and rolled up the tube and was going to put it in the saddle pack.  Another aside, I had no new tubes.  I just ordered some today (I use Continental tubes because they have removable valve stems).  My confidence level in the repaired tube wasn't very high and my new tubes were a few days away.  My Roark is currently doing duty on my trainer, so I switched tubes with it, thus giving me a patchless tube for the saddle pack.  I should have been more confident in my patching abilities, as the tube is doing fine.

All of the foregoing was just getting to the theme of the blog title.  Back in October Ray actually did my replacement, using a boot.  But I learned something new: he puts his tubes in flat, without rounding out the tube.  Because you don't want to air up a patched tube outside the tire, I was "forced" to utilize installing the tube flat.  All went well, the tire filled out nicely with all of the bead hooking properly.  So thanks, Ray.