I had a flat tire on today's Trek Parmer Pedaler ride. It has happened before, it happens to everybody at one time or another. But this flat tire has a back story, and an epilog. And so, I begin at the beginning.
In August I purchased a Trek Madone road bike (really nice). It came with carbon wheels that are tubeless ready, but not tubeless tires. At the time, I proclaimed that I would switch to tubeless (several years after inquiring about them) in February or after the first flat. February because that is the start of racing season and after first flat because I saw no reason not to give these tires some wear.
Taking off these thru-axel wheels is more involved than my quick-release ones. Only a few weeks ago did I even practice removing a wheel, and it was the front one. So it was an unwelcome surprise when cruising along about 17 mph when the rear wheel suddenly went flat. I called out "flat" to get the group to stop and called out to Jim H that I was going to need assistance. This would be the first time removing the rear wheel.
First thing Jim said was turn the bike upside down. I never do this, but removed the water bottles and turned it upside down. Then shifted to the smallest cog. Jim removed the wheel for me, I handed him the tire tool, and he started to remove the tire. Meanwhile, I removed the saddle pack and took out the spare tire. Well folks, since I haven't had a flat on the road in quite a while, and hadn't planned on having one with my newish tires, my mind hadn't fully considered my new Madone with the Pro51 Carbon Wheels. My spare was perfectly fine for my Emonda with the Dura Ace wheels, but the valve stem was too short for the Pro51's. Jim had a spare. One of the benefits of group riding is there are plenty of spare tubes. The trick is getting one with long stems. Anyway we used Jim's. Uh, my tires are 25mm and Jim's tube was 35-45mm. Jim did the installation, I aired it up with CO2 cartridge, and we cleaned up and were on our way with no further interruptions.
Here is the epilog. When I got home I intended to switch out Jim's tube to give it back to him (not getting him a new one is another story). That's when I discovered I could not remove the tire from the wheel. By this time I could remove the wheel from the bike, but not in the upside down position. Try as I might, I could not get tire the off. It will have to stay there until I go tubeless.
I immediately ordered two Continental 5000 tubeless tires and will be visiting the bike shop tomorrow to arrange to get them installed. Plus buying tubeless repair kits and extraneous stuff that goes with going tubeless. If you read earlier posts from this year, you will learn that I'm not a big fan of tubeless. But I am a big fan of how they ride, so I'll suck it up and learn how to deal with them.
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