Tubes

Nothing but a bunch of hooptedoodle today.  I don’t have much to say about anything much at all.  Sometimes this is when I’m at my best.  I doubt today will be one of those days. 

I spent a good chunk of my weekend fixing flat tires on Mags’ bikes.  Her ‘70s era Raleigh 3-speed that she keeps in her office only makes an appearance in my garage when the tires go flat.  It’s my only chance to lube and tune it. 

I get tired of fixing flats.  We’ve got something like 13 bikes, and it seems like one of them always has a flat.  I’ve got boxes of old tubes hidden throughout the garage.  I tell myself that one day I’ll patch them up and reuse them, but even I know that’s a lie.   Instead I invent clever ways to use them.  They make great shims.  One of my bikes has an inner tube wrapped around the seat tube so I could mount an oversize front derailleur on it.  There’s snippets of road bike tubes over the cross bars of my Yakima racks to keep bikes from wobbling.  Last fall I used an old tube to tie down the cover on our air conditioner. 

I’ve tried using sealants like Slime to prevent flats, but have only had mixed results.  What usually happens is that I get a hole so big that the sealant can’t fill it.   If it’s a presta valve tube then I have to cut a hole in the tube, squirt in the sealant, then patch the hole.  That patch is bound to fail eventually.  Then I waste my time pumping it up, riding it until it goes flat, hoping that the sealant will do it’s job but still getting stranded somewhere without a pump. 

I recently discovered Bell’s FlatBlocker Tubes.  They’re extra thick tubes that already come with sealant inside.  They’re kind of tough to cram into a skinny tire.  I've broken a lot of tire levers trying.  But they might be the answer to my flat tire woes.  I put one in the back tire of one of my commuter bikes and didn’t have a flat all winter.  Now Mags’ Raleigh has one in the back tire too.