My flat-tire episode was on someone else's bike this morning. On my commute in I saw a guy stopped, called out, he replied he had a flat. Okay...a youngish guy who seemed unsure what to do next, holding TIG-welded steel, mid-to-late 80's(?) Lemond. He said he was a novice, had forgotten to bring a spare tube. Also had neither patch kit nor pump, so we are talking real novice here. He'd hit a bump going through some gravel. I was on sew-ups but I carry a patch kit for just such occasions, have seen too many of them. To judge from the state of his other tire, his tires had been soft, probably 50psi or less. The tube showed a narrow-gap snake-bite flat on the inside surface. I can't see how he'd get that from a rim-pinch but maybe the gravel had squished the tube against a spoke nipple head. The cloth rim strip was good. So I put a single patch across the two holes, pumped it up and it held air just fine.

Then he compared the front to the now-fixed rear and decided the front was too low too. So I put my pump on it, and it immediately decided it didn't want to hold air either. What the ...' ? The valve stem had separated from the tube, a failure I've seen as few times too. Tough to patch that and we had no spare tube. On a whim I decided to wrap a patch partially around and up the valve stem and wedge it in good, thinking maybe the glue and pressure from the rim would seal it place long enough for him to go the mile or two into Lexington. Tried it, pumped it up to maybe 40 to 50psi, and it held air! We took off and I saw him riding in my rear-view mirror until our ways parted, so I guess it stayed rideable for a bit.

First time I've ever tried a patch like that.