Flat Tires Forever
After my third flat tire this week, my bike shop told me: “When it rains, it pours.”
That means when you get one flat, be prepared to prevent another! It also means the cause of my second and third flat was never properly repaired since my first slow leak.
QUESTION 1.
How many of these things can make my tire go flat again and again?
- a piece of glass or metal embedded in the tire.
- a pinched tube caused by low tire pressure and the rim bottoming out.
- a pinched tube caused by improper fitting of tube and tire.
- a break in my positive karma which causes my ego to deflate.
- a protruding spoke which punctures the tube.
- a sharp edge on a rim strip or tire liner which punctures the tube.
- a cut on a valve stem caused by the edge of rim valve hole.
- some kids in my neighborhood go around letting air out of people’s tires.
QUESTION 2.
I can’t get this tire off my rim, and it’s a lot of work to put it back on my rim without a pinched tube.
It’s a tight fit. What’s my problem? Which of these is not the correct reason?
- the rim strip is blocking the seat of the tire bead.
- the tube or tire liner is caught under the tire bead somewhere around the rim.
- the system sucks, how are we to know two different tire sizes of 26 x 1-3/8 inch.
- something fell in the tire while putting it back on the rim.
- you have a 26 x 1-3/4 inch tire and a 26 x 1.75 rim.
- you don’t have enough strength or technique.
QUESTION 3.
Who among these people cannot fix their own freakin flat?
- Anita Patschket
- Ivan Gotti Pompe
- Lee Ki-Ban Nomour
- Ken Jadouitfome
BONUS QUESTION:
Just a few minutes after Eddy Merckx, the greatest cyclist of modern times, set a new World Hour Record in 1972, one of the tubular tires on his bike blew out like a gunshot. Obviously, if this flat tire had happened ten minutes earlier, it would have killed his record near the end of an historic and painful ride.
What tire was it? What make and model was it?
