That's Patrick. He's carrying his bike because it doesn't roll with a flat. It's a combination of an old Araya 700c rim with a Pasala tire. When that tire is flat on that rim, it doesn't roll. It flops around. Check out his smile. This is picture was taken about 1/2 way through a mile walk to the road. We had to call for a pick up. That sucks. But Patrick's smile rules. It's great to be screwed and finally throw in the towel and call for a ride and see a smile like that.Here's the run down of flats we had today on our ride to Cheney:
#1 - Me: On the way to meet Patrick, I run over a staple. I have a spare tube, so I don't bother patching the flat. As I'm changing the flat in the rain a buddy, John, comes wandering up. He's on his way to work. It's nice to change a flat and chat with someone.
#2 - Me: Patrick and I rode from downtown to Cheney today. Right at the end of the paved section of the Fish Lake Trail, as we were about to get onto Cheney-Spangle road, I get another flat; this one is a big hole. The tire has about a 1 mm gash in it. The only spare tube I have doesn't have a long enough stem for the deep V on my Trek, so I get out my patch kit, only to find I'm out of glue. The tiny knob of glue that's in there is dried up. Patrick has no patch kit. We walk the mile into Cheney and buy a patch kit at the LBS.
#3 - Patrick
: Pinch flat. Snake bites. We're on our way back and we're taking the non-paved part of the trail: lots of rail rock and big stuff. I give Patrick my spare. As I mount it, I rip the stem on the sharp edge of the stem hole in the rim. So, I give Patrick the extra tube I have (the one with the short stem). Patrick loads up the tire, pumps it up and away we go.
: Pinch flat. Snake bites. We're on our way back and we're taking the non-paved part of the trail: lots of rail rock and big stuff. I give Patrick my spare. As I mount it, I rip the stem on the sharp edge of the stem hole in the rim. So, I give Patrick the extra tube I have (the one with the short stem). Patrick loads up the tire, pumps it up and away we go. #4 - Patrick: About 20 yards down the trail, the tire explodes. The tire wasn't seated properly. So, Patrick patches up the tire that had the snake bike/pinch flat and we're off.
#5: About 30 yards down the trail, the patch gives out. The snake bite is too wide for a small patch. So, I try patching the tire with the ripped stem. No luck. We patch another patch on top of the snake bike patch, and it holds. This is our last tube. As Patrick pumps it up, that sharp rim edge on the stem hole gets the best of the stem and we're done.
I hand Patrick the phone.
We walk. He gets picked up. I ride back to town.
We had a great time. It's nice to ride with someone who continues to be chilled out and smiling as we dig deeper and deeper into our hole.
Crazy John, I spent the afternoon dealing with flat issues as well. My tires had been running a little low all week and I finally remembered to pump them up a bit after lunch. I was just finishing up my back tire when it started rapidly releasing air. It turns out that I had ripped a hole in the stem while pumping a little too vigorously.
ReplyDeleteNo problem I thought, I've got a patched spare in my bag. I installed that tube and discovered my patching skills were sadly lacking. Two tries later I finally got a patch on that worked well enough to ride home on, but I had to stop to pump it up again half way. Guess I'll be picking up a couple more new tubes tomorrow.