Tandem Cycling - Kudos to Zonatandem

Many times people provide tips in this forum and I suspect wonder if anyone really reads the stuff let alone uses it. Thursday, I was out for a late afternoon ride and saw a rider on the side of the road alone with a flat. I slowed down and asked if he needed help. He said, well yes. He had a 1 inch slice in his sidewall and somehow he had tried to fix / replace tubes without success.:eek: I offered my spare tube but said we need to put something in the tire as a boot or else my contribution will be another failed tube. I suggested using a dollar bill. THIS WAS A ZONATANDAM IDEA POSTED A FEW MONTHS PAST. We put a dollar bill in the tire carefully to not deface the currency:rolleyes: , pumped up the tire and off he went. I went to the bike shop today for a replacement tube and while I was there my mechanic cut up an old tire and I now have some real boots for tires.

It's weird- dollar bills work better than anything I've ever tried, and I've tried a lot of materials over the years. I always come back to the good old greenback. Almost always have one handy.

It's about the only thing a dollar is good for these days.......

Rick

I suggested using a dollar bill.

This works pretty good on a lot of bikes, but I've heard you need to use at least a ten or a twenty on some bikes and if it's a really fancy carbon job, nothing less than a fifty will get you home.

An alternative that is cheaper is a selection of squares and rectangles
cut from tevdek, the nontearable plastic used in some postal envelopes,
packaging and housewrap. A selection from 1x1", 2x1" and 3x1" would
cover most tire tears and weigh milligrams, and survive indefinitely in
your pack. A bit of glue on the carcass and tevdek will keep it from
sliding about. The stuff is a lot stronger than currency, though
currency, for paper, is pretty strong stuff.

Glad somebody reads/remembers some of the posts we make!
Yup, a dollar bill works fine, Tyvek works, as does part of an old worn tire and we've even heard of a folded Powerbar wrapper doing the trick!
A note on American paper currency: it's made of some pretty tough stuff and does have silk thread running through it. US paper currency is one of the few that will survive a washing when its inadvertently dumped in with the laundry!
And a dollar is a cheap way to get home when you slice up as tire . . . less expen$ive than a cab!
Necessity is the mother of invention . . .
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem