Had a series of rather uneventful commutes recently, although this morning's had a few wrinkles. It was warm enough that I swapped out the coat for the windbreaker, and of course the 10% change of rain meant it rained a bit. Nothing too bad, fortunately. Then at the 12 mile mark of my 20 mile commute, my front tire started hissing and spitting slime. Fortunately this was one of the stretches that has streetlights (I much prefer not having to hold a flashlight while doing repairs), so I parked under one and assessed the damage - hole in the tire (where the slime was leaking out) and the hissing was a few inches away (where, presumably, the hole in the tube was.)

*Sigh*

So I got out the tools, pulled the front wheel, etc, etc, and sure enough there was a small gash in my tube - big enough that the slime couldn't plug it, but small enough that the tube was still repairable. Now, I love the slime tubes I've got. My morning commute involves a few miles of unpaved shoulder with a good supply of goatheads and nasty sharp objects, and my rate of flats and slow leaks dropped dramatically once I got them. (Even the tire liners didn't make as much of a difference.) But man, are those things messy when they get a bigger hole. Anyway, patched the tube (after a lot of cleanup), checked the tire and liner twice for whatever caused the hole (no sign of it - probably a piece of glass from the broken beer bottles in the bike lane earlier in the commute) put everything back together and wisely checked along both sides of the tire to make sure the tube wasn't pinched under it anywhere. And for once, it was! So I shoved it back in place with a tire lever and avoided the pinch flat. Happy me. ^_^ Aired it up, and it was uneventful from there on out. Here's hoping for more boring commutes.