Originally Posted by
GamblerGORD53
One time I got 4 wire holes at once on a century day ride. Fixed 3 and had trouble with the 4th, plus I was getting swarmed by mosquitoes. So I pumped the tire as fast as I could and rode as fast as I could a half or 3/4 mile till it went half flat. It got me 7 miles to the town wal-mart.
Same thing Friday night on the way to the state park; about 4-5 miles out I apparently picked up a wire in the back tire. Got stopped and started pondering taking the panniers off so I could flip the bike, and I was already swarmed. Hosed on some DEET, pumped it to about 50PSI, and hammered a half mile before it was too flat to ignore again. Lather, rinse, repeat. (Glad it was the back as the last hill was good for a no-pedal 30mph descent to the gate.) In the morning, found the wire, patched the tube, got it all back together and around 65PSI...the valve stem failed where it attaches to the tube.
And that's why I always carry a patch kit and a spare tube.
And then annoyingly, today the front tire was low. Glass shard worked its way through. Pretty sure that was from a busted bottle I ran over while dodging a pothole about 20 miles back.