Oh, good! A place to perform penance, abase myself, and grovel for the forgiveness of the ever so fickle butyl overlords.
I recently finished putting together my new ride, an '86 Trek Elance 310. I had rolled around the neighborhood with the kids a few times, and was taking it for my first longer ride on Memorial Day.
The bike has new Panaracer Pasela PT 700c x 28mm tires, new Kenda tubes on new Mavic Open Pro 32 spoke rims.
On mile 22 of 50, the rear tire started to get a bit squishy. It was at this point I noticed in my haste to get out the door, I had left the saddle bag with the spare tubes, levers, and patch kit on the dining room table.
As I'm checking the tire casing for anything obvious, another cyclist stopped and helped. He was prepared, unlike me.
Didn't see anything immediately obviously wrong with the tube, but Brad the good samaritan gave me a new tube, mounted and inflated the tire, and away we went. He scooted off in to the distance much faster than I could keep up.
Less than a mile back in to the ride, my back tire went really soft again.
I called my wife and she picked me up.
Looking at both flat tubes when I got home, the holes were on the underside of the tube. I had initially used thin butyl rimstrips, and it looks like the tube was able to protrude into one of the chambers for the spoke heads.
So I took those off, and swapped in some hard plastic strips from another wheelset I have.
One of my flat tubes had the hole too close to the valve to easily patch, so I tossed it and patched the other. The patched tube is now in the saddle bag,
So I mounted everything back up, pumped up the tires, and took the bike for a quick spin on the rail trail near my house. About a mile into the ride, *BOOM* goes the rear tube. I walk back to my house.
It looks like the plastic rim strip has a sharp edge near the valve hole, and the new tube was rubbing against it. The hole in the tube is larger than the (admittedly small) patches I have, so I chucked it.
I now have two rolls of Velox rim tape, so I'm going to replace the rim strips before riding this Sunday's Tour de Cure.