bulldog1935

you can buy 1/4-oz bottles of zap-a-gap on ebay - once you open the bottle, they become useless for roadside, so buy two

it's the green zap - the gap filler - be careful with the pink zap, the fumes will stick your lips together

a 2-oz Stans bottle and a valve core tool completes the kit.

Kevindale

Nope. CA glue is used on tissue (including eyeballs!) because it sets very quickly, and doesn't cause inflammation. Not only doesn't it break down in water -- it's activated by moisture! Things that stick really tightly to the skin, like CA glues, come loose because the skin is constantly growing from underneath, with the top most layers sloughing off. The glue sloughs off with the dead skin. This takes several days, by which time the small wound that was glued should be sufficiently healed to hold together.

bulldog1935

this, and it does say CA (=cyanoacrylate)


the thin, wetting pink bottle, they call CA+

rhm

As I mentioned, my tire (a Michelin Dynamic Classic with only a few hundred miles on it) blew out just as I was getting to the train station on Monday, and I ran for the train pushing my bike, slammed it into the locker as fast as I could, and got on the train. I didn't get back to there until yesterday afternoon, armed with an extra spare inner tube. And I discovered that my tire had not come off the rim, as expected, but the sidewall had torn from the bead for about three inches.

It was at this point that I discovered I didn't have any $1 bills! Only $20's. I wrapped a $20 bill around the inner tube and pumped it up, but the bill came out the tear, didn't look good at all. So I wrapped three $20 bills around the tube, intertwined in a helical fashion, to make a tough paper tube about 4" long. And that held. One of the bills got an inch-long tear in it, but it's still legal tender.

In the future I'm going to always carry a long strip of tyvek cut from a Priority Mail envelope.

eom 

The Tyvek is a great idea. Gonna add some to my tool kit.
It does conflict with the LBS head mechanic's requirement for a twenty left inside the tire as a tip.

jimmuller 

Yes, well, speaking of flats - I rode the Grandis to work yesterday. It was a grand ride but I decided on a whim last night to ride the Gazelle today. So I started to put the Grandis in the basement when I notice the front tire flat. What the '? It was just fine when I brought it in the front door a a few hours earlier. <sigh> Just one more task.

Addendum-de-dum-dum: The cause was a tiny pointy piece of something, I dunno', maybe dark glass or rock or wire. Not even visible on the tread side of the tire but sure enough visible on the inside. Where do these things come from???

jimmuller 

More commute flats at play here. I rode the Masi to work on Monday. That evening I noticed the rear tire flat, a sew-up I had flatted and patched a few weeks ago. So last night I pulled it off the rim and stuck it under water. The only area fizzing was where I had done the previous patch. I pulled the stitching out, opened up the casing and found nothing unusual. The only thing I can figure is either the previous patch was leaking or there was leak nearby and the air was taking the easiest way out of the casing. I ran a finger up the casing each direction as far as I could reach and didn't feel anything amiss. So I put another patch on it and started stitching but didn't finish, put it aside for tonight. (I have another tire I could mount if I really really need to ride the Masi, which I don't.)

So I rode the Grands yesterday and today. On my way to work this morning the rear went soft. Dang. A sharp sliver of glass about 1mm long. The Grandis has high-end clinchers (Veloflex Masters, 23mm) so I replaced the tube and rode on to work.

Over the lasts few weeks the normally clean shoulders on these roads have become littered with new glass splatters. It seems like nearly 1/4 mile of glass here, there, everywhere approaching Woburn Center. My sweetie says I should stop riding the sew-ups to work. He! It's time to pull the Bianchi out of the garage, clean up the mouse droppings in the handlebar bag. It wears Gatorskins, plus it has a hub dynamo powering LED lights for when the sun sets earlier.

SJX426 

jimmuller - I have had 7 flats in about 3 week period. I don't know if it is all my fault in tire assembly or poor tubes or more glass on the road.

One of my suspects is the tubes. I bought a batch of Michelin Airstop Butyl's. Most of the failures are within 2 inches of the stem, some at the base of the reinforced section. Most notably a rupture about 1/4" long on the inside of the tube next to the rim.

Do you have a favorite inner tube that isn't too heavy? What is your experience with using tubes in tires one size larger (25 tire with a 23 max tube)?

jimmuller 

I had the side of a Schrader valve pop on the Peugeot on a commute home one time. Had a similar failure occur on the Raleigh, came home from vacation and found it flat in the living room where I'd left it just fine. Had valve-to-casing failures on a pair of ultralight Vittoria tubes. The shop happily replaced the first, but when the second blew I just tossed it and decided not to try them again. Cheap made-in-<someplace far, far away> junk.

I am currently trying some "racing" tubes from Continental, and so far they haven't demonstrated any similar failure.

I've mixed tube and tire sizes, sometimes wedging a nominal 28-32mm tube into a 25mm tires or a 35mm tube into a 25mm tire. I've also gone the other way, figuring the tube should be able to stretch at least that much. It seems to make no difference except that fitting a smaller tube into a larger tire is a lot easier than the other way around. (No, I don't mean fitting the tire into the tube. ) The Grandis' 23mm Veloflex tires on Torelli rims are hard enough to deal with as it is, don't need extra tube rubber getting in the way.

One issue with sew-ups I've been meaning to ask is this. Whenever I patch one and finally get all the stitching back together the rim strip seem to have stretched. I have generally pulled off 6 to 8 inches, but when I try to glue it back down it is maybe 1/4" too long to fit without buckling. I've been tempted to cut it and overlap the ends. Has anyone else had this problem and have you just cut the tape?

SJX426 

I was considering the Continental's.

It has been awhile since repairing a sew-up, about 46 years or so. I don't recall having that issue. May be a material change since then or the rim strip is stretched when you pull it off the casing. I don't see a problem with even butting a cut together. The rim strip doesn't really have a significant structural purpose other than to protect the case from spoke holes. It also ends up being the medium for bonding to the tire and the rim at the same time. If you use different adhesive, the rim tape should stick to the casing instead of the rim. But you know that already,

squirtdad

Not quite a flat, but flattish related.

I have been running some Tufo s33's on a commuter bike and have been really surprised at how well they hold air.... pretty much forget about pumping up, until running late, I hop on realize the rear is really low, too low to ride.

Pump it up and it seems to have slow leak, but I can't find any place where it looks like I punctured, and the latex fixed (using the tufo sealant).

put more sealant in and it lost pressure overnight ????

the light clicked on and I replaced the valve core......and no leak.

My theory is that over time the sealant gunked up the valve core enough so the it didn't seal 100%

some thing to remember to check for any one using sealant and presta valves.

Lascauxcaveman 

My most recent flat was at near end of Cino Heroica.

After two solid days of mercilessly pounding my Pasela PTs over 100 miles of fast gravel descending, flinty washboards and sun-baked chipseal, AFTER all that abuse, with less than 4 miles rolling out to the finish, on smooth pavement I managed to find a tiny piece of sharp curly wire. I knew I had lost my mini pump on the first day of the ride (somehow bounced out of my saddle bag? It was that rough and fast) so I flagged down my traveling partner on his way past, who tossed me his frame pump and skedaddled just as the skies really opened up.

First tube: bad, apparently. Somehow a holed tube ended up in new tube box. Hmph. Second tube is OK, but my buddy's frame pump only gets it up to about 20 psi and stops working. Hmm, maybe need to oil the seal on that one? Pouring down rain, about 45 degrees (down from the sunny-hot 70 it was at the top of the hill we crested 8 miles eight miles earlier) lots of people asking if I'm OK as they whiz by desperate to get out of the deluge. White Knight of the day (thanks @iab) stops and hands me his CO2 charger before proceeding onward, and that does the trick.

Literally ten seconds after I have the tire gassed up to ridable pressure, the Cino support guy on the Honda 90 pulls up with his basket full of tires, tubes, pumps and sundry.

Just like the rainstorm, the support bike had perfect Cino timing!

SJX426 

I have been plagued with flat tires in the last couple of months. Some have been punctures but over half are ruptures on the inside of the tube near the valve stem. Some could be attributed to using a 18/23 tube in a 25 tire but I am not sure this is the real root cause..\

The first configuration, that was running just fine until a sliver of glass got through the casing, was a Vittoria Open Corsa SC 25-622 tire on a Mavic Open Pro 4 CD rim using Michlien Airstop Butyl 700x18-23 tubes. three tubes failed within an inch of the valve stem on the rim side of the tube. on looked like a pucture but the other two were ruptures with length. All looked stretched around the holes.

The tires were used and there were a number of small slices in the rubber and one or two pin holes through the casing. I didn't think any would contribute to a flat.

There was an increase in broken glass on the path I used so I changed routes. Ended up being about .75 miles shorter, which was a bit disappointing along with more street riding. The flats continued.

I also changed patches from the round ones performance sells that look like vinyl and don't stretch to Parks Super Patch. I patched the tubes. the ones that failed with a patch were the ones near the valve base. I think the expansion forces are different in this area given the reinforcement for the valve. The failed patch was a result of air making its way between the patch and the tube to the edge. I increased my attention of detail in applying the patch and how long it sat deflated before assembling the tire/tube. Still failed.

Because of the age and condition of the tires, I ordered Vittoria Corsa 700x23c-622. Instead of the Michelin tube, I used a Kenda set I had in the bin. BTW, these are great tires, smooth and quiet with a wonderful ride even at 120 PSI.

This configuration lasted about 5 days before another failure of the tube near the valve.

Oh, I also replaced the rim tape, made sure there wasn't anything protruding from the rim to contribute to a rupture. I thought that the "sinking" of the tape in the spoke hole might have contributed but the failure is not in that location.

If you read this epistle and have some ideas as to what is going on or have a recommendation for better tubes, I would greatly appreciate your comments!

jimmuller 

What?? You think any of us actually read what everyone else writes? C'mon now.

I've had a few failures like that, ruptures at or near the base of the valve stem. I attributed them to flawed tubes at the time. It occurred on a pair of Vittoria ultralight tubes. The LBS replaced the first but when the second blew the same way I just wrote it off as a failed experiment.

Right now I'm running Continental ultralight "race" tubes in the skinny Veloflex tires on the Grandis and they seem to be holding up okay.

I've wondered if another factor could be movement of the valve stem in the hole. At least one failure seemed to be due to the stem being pressed through the hole and the thicker part of the tube at the stem's base not liking that stress. But I don't really know.

Speaking of the Grandis and flats, I rode it to work yesterday. About 3:30 PM I noticed the front tire flat. That's the wheel that had had the tube failures. Ah, but this time it wasn't a tube failure. It was just a plain ol' penetration flat. Pulled the tube out of the tire and there was a sliver of glass still stuck in outer surface of the tube, mocking me, daring me to fix the hole, apparently thinking he couldn't be seen. I tossed him into the trash and patched the tube. Sometimes a conventional flat can be comforting.

jimmuller 

And speaking of flats, a few weeks ago as I was just a few miles from home with dusk approaching on my evening commute I saw a cyclist walking his bike on the other side of the street. I called out and he said he had a flat. I offered to fix it and he said he was going to walk into Lexington and call someone to pick him up. I said I could fix it in 5 minutes. Otherwise he was in for a long walk. It took a bit longer because my already-patched spare tube wouldn't hold air (I tossed it when I got home) so we found his leak I patched it. We spoke about bike stuff while I mounted the tire, pumped it up. He thanked me and we went on our separate ways home.

But the thing is, he'd never seen a full-frame pump. And even though he said he had a mini-pump he apparently didn't know how to fix a flat.

Just another commute.

BigChief 

There's another flat tire factor in play that hasn't been mentioned yet. And it's an odd one that I can't explain. For some reason, there's areas of the country where you can ride for miles and not see one piece of garbage on the side of the road. Then, there's other places where the road is literally lined with garbage and lots of things that could puncture a tire. Different areas of the country seem to have a different mindset when it comes to tossing junk out the window of your car.

Jean3n16

rhm

Tldr, Jim, but I got to the heart of the matter...

Glad you could help a fellow traveler out!

jimmuller 

If I knew what Tldr meant I'd know whether to laugh or not. So many possibilities, most of which I'd rather not think about!

qcpmsame 

Jim, those Conti Ultralight tubes are my choice, only one puncture flat in the 4 years I used them. Same as yours, a sliver of glass that manages to slip through and get me on a cold and rainy afternoon. I watched for the various deals for 3 to 5 tubes and stocked up , but they are just sitting on the shelf, other than the single in my seat wedge.

I did change our daughter's Cannondale R500 to Gatorskins and Ultralight tubes when she came down last spring. She had Michelin Pro3 Service Course and their tubes, she had 3 flats on one ride with me, discovered that the Co-op she frequents, in Atlanta, had installed the rim strips wrong and they were cutting into the tubes. Never saw that before, either, the strips had a sharp edge that stuck up where it lapped. I showed her what they had done, she went home and gave them an ear full. And, she does know how to change a tire and tube now, I did a home study course in our garage for her. Had her do the work out on the road, learning by doing.

She is now a Ultralight and Gatorskin/Continental convert.

Bill

arex

I keep getting bit by goatheads, even with sealant-filled heavy tubes and Marathons. Starting to really tick me off.

SJX426 

Just composed a long message and lost it!
@jimmuller - Thanks for your empathetic response! Greatly appreciated.

A Specialized tube was purchased several years ago because it was perceived to be of higher quality. Upon first inflation, it ruptured along the inside of the parting/mold line. So much for high expectations! These Michelins are reminiscent of that tube.

The tube was patched and installed, pumped to 120 and left overnight. Flat in the morning. Tube removed, pumped, tested for leaks, none, pumped some more and tested, none. Installed inflated to 120 and is sitting next to the bike. Crazy to think that it will hold air, I know. But that is a little of who I am!
@BigChief - the Washington DC area is one big dump. With all the hype about conservation, it is a total joke. Same goes with safety and respect for life. Hypocrisy is the value of this area in so many ways. Your would think it is Christmas with the plastic bag decorations in the runs, rivers and paths. trying to think of a disposable item that isn't represented in the vegetation would futile.

Conti Ultralight's are nest on my order list. Thanks!

SJX426 

Well that didn't work, duh! Pulled the patch and replaced with another. Now waiting for results.

.... Less than 3 min and back to leaking! New tube will be sought.

BTW: the bead jack is the tool to use with these tires. Don't think I would have gotten this far without inducing punctures.

jimmuller 

Too long, didn't read. But did notice this bit.

I went through a string of flats which had no obvious cause, no puncture, no pinch, etc. In some cases I could pump the tire and it would seem to be just fine but be flat in the morning. Several times I couldn't find the leak until I put it under water and then I'd see an almost imperceptible stream of tiny, tiny bubbles from a hole way too small to find by hand even in the quiet of my living room, let alone on a noisy roadside. They sure appeared to be flaws where the rubber just decided to leak all by itself. Those tubes usually get tossed. I've tried patching them. In one case the patch leaked, the only time I've ever had that happen.

SJX426 

Once used a jeweler loop to look at a leak and found the rubber to look almost porous!

Well I found a Michelin tube that didn't have a patch next to the stem and installed with the result of pressure retention. It will be interesting to see which feeling wins, frustration or confidence.