damnit. My back tire just blew sitting next to me in the office.. wtf? I was sitting here working and all of a sudden I hear a PSSSSSSSSSST noise, and I check and my back tire is totally flat. What's up with that?

Darkmother: Remember at Urbane how I didn't want to comment on how many flats I've gotten for fear of jinxing myself? yep. That's two in the past week.

So, I need to buy a pump. Hopefully something small enough that I can just toss it in my bag without it jabbing me in the back all the time. But something that I can put enough pressure into my tire with, obviously. Any recommendations? I have a floor pump at home, but my old mini pump disintegrated a couple months ago.

Topeak road morph... Small, compact and will go to 160 psi if you have the pipes for it.

i've been using a planet bike roadie from mec.. not too happy with it but it gets the job done and it was cheap. i need a floor pump though. i think the topeak has had some good recommendations.

on the topic of cheap and mec... i was riding home along richmond at spadina last night. some old dude in a car pulls up to me at the intersection and tells me that with my dark clothes and weak LED blinky, he could barely see me. i asked him if he could see the reflective strip on my bag and he say no. he wasn't being confrontational at all and i kind of appreciated the fact that he took the time to give me his 2 cents. maybe he thought i was getting pissed (which i wasn't at all) because he suddenly whipped out a card that said "EMS" on it and said "hey, i care!" ..i guess he works/volunteers for EMS? anyhoo.. time to get a real rear light. those $3 mec ones are really weak and i keep forgetting to turn it off. the tab on my pos front light (planet bike/mec/cheap) snapped off during a cold snap..harhar.. is it just me, or is it hard to find cateye stuff in the city?

I have the topeak road morph, not that small though. Goki, you might want to check out Cateye TL-LD1000.

http://hkbicycle.com.hk/image/Cateye...AR%20LIGHT.jpg

I remember I saw them selling at urbane for like $36 or something like that. Pretty $$. Might want to ebay it. My friend has it, and that thing is BRIGHT.

Check your rim tape for tears.....the tire might be getting punctured from the inside by the spokes. Was the tube a repair job? That is weird. I got a great floor pump from MEC for 25$. For me, I get all my parts/accessorries from MEC as they have really cheap stuff. Rim tape is 2$ for a pair.

[QUOTE=somnambulant]damnit. My back tire just blew sitting next to me in the office.. wtf? I was sitting here working and all of a sudden I hear a PSSSSSSSSSST noise, and I check and my back tire is totally flat. What's up with that?

Darkmother: Remember at Urbane how I didn't want to comment on how many flats I've gotten for fear of jinxing myself? yep. That's two in the past week.
QUOTE]

That happens sometimes. Usually when your bike is pissed at you. I had a spoke break while my bike was in my kitchen last winter. Sprong! Very strange.

yeah, like I said, I think I definitely jinxed myself. I inspected the rim tape when I repaired my last flat on Saturday (which also seemed to happen while it was just sitting), and everything looked kosher. Oh, and yes, this tube DID have a patch on it. I think I need to pick up a couple new tubes tonight.. I'm thinking about grabbing one of the Crank Brothers pumps. They apparently go to 115 or 130 psi depending on the model. Not sure if my noodly arms will accomplish that, but it'll definitely get me home to my floor pump (which is also a cheapie from MEC).

I think I need some new LEDs also. They're both pretty dim and tend to turn on by accident when I have them thrown in my bag.

I haven't been very impressed with many LED lights, and $35 for a rear blinky is pretty ridiculous, I made my own helmet lamps that are super bright from junk I got at Active Surplus for like $10.00 total investment. Run's off 4 AA's zip-tied to the back of the helmet.(this is pre-battery pack... much brighter now)
http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...tachmentid=937
What I'm waiting for is something a friend in research at Mount Sinai is working on; something called a Super LED, it requires like a 12v power source and some sort of a heat sink to keep the bulb(?) part cool. They are trying to develop it for field medical operations where they need bright light but don't have a lot of power to run halogen work lamps. They are apparently as bright as the high beams on a car.......... I'd love to have those on my helmet, blind cabbies who pull into the bike lane without looking, ride past they're window and stun them with 85watts of white light.

can you make them strobe so we're the only ones that seem to move on the road?

next time you're at active surplus pick up a couple enema bags for me, would you?

(aka. the reason why my gf will never ever go in there with me again :P)

What kind of bulb and refectors are those? Pretty neat set up. Helmet mounting is a great idea. As for the LEDs, yeah, there is some cool stuff on the way. The super bright ones will be very interesting, and way cheaper than HID. I crave an obnoxiously bright light that I can high beam cagers with.

That's grounds for breakup....I love that store! And really, who doesn't need a few more enima bags.....

you and your cagers.. :P

I don't know know I kinda yearn for being able to go *click*...and fill his car with the light of three suns and redden the side of his head, make him sweat and bubble the paint off the roof.... as well lol... so it's not just darkmother

It's almost funny how much I have come to hate cars, and the way cities are built around them. I mean, I like cars mechanically, I like to work on them, but I hate what they do to the way we live.

I also have anger management issues at times.

It's ok man .... I LOVE cars, I love driving them, racing em, all of it. You are correct in the way we are supposed to worship the car, it's sick.

definitely.. I too love driving, working on em, racing em, etc. But damn why can't we be more like cities like Copenhagen/Amsterdam/etc?

I heard something the other day on Metro Morning talking about what's projected to happen as China's economy continues to improve.. ie. if the Chinese had as many cars per capita as we do (not sure what the "we" they were referring to is.. but it's 3 cars for every 4 people, they have roughly 1.3B, so around 975,000,000 cars), what sort of calamaties that would cause.. how much landmass would have to be devoted to car-related infrastructure (parking/roads/etc). Pretty crazy!

speaking about china, the "china rises" documentary series that's been running on cbc the past few weeks has been really good. one gov't official they interviewed stated that when given the choice of a "mercedes or the environment", the chinese would always go for the mercedes. in the west, it's been-there-done-that, now we're reapin' what we've sown. but damn, they've still got a lot of bikes over there.

well.... I wrote a piece on street racing last year for the editor of Wheels ... never got published .... but Toronto has more Car dealerships per capita than any other city in North America. As for the China rising... the reason for all the bikes is simply they could never afford a car until recently, the chinese are certainly just as easy victims of excessive consumption. Looking at their recent upper class and what's being done there for them is shocking. The old guard would spin in their graves.

I don't think you'll have to worry too much about the car problem. A bike there is almost a months salary.

i ride old school single speed but i'm always working old bikes to fixed but never achive it. any advice for el cheepo?

Wow, this weather blows.

So tonight I'm bringing home ... hubs / rims / spokes / nipples / truing stand / tension meter / etc. Gonna have me a nice weekend of wheelbuilding fun at the homestead.

sss,

IRO / Formula is a decent option for a an inexpensive but good hub. You could pick one of those up and build yourself a nice rear wheel. Failing that, I believe Keith over at Cavern Cycles is the resident fixed gear expert and could build you up something nice. Have you run into any specific problems w/ your previous attempts that have you stumped? Maybe if you're more specific we can help you make some progress.

- eyefloater

PS. I say we all head to Moonbean again this weekend. I've had an exhausting week (speaking of which, I've gotta get to work). It'd be good to sit around on my ass for a couple hours and listen to you jokers talk **** for awhile. ;)

I'm good for Saturday or Sunday moonbeam.

yeah, I'm good for some moonbeam action as well I think.. assuming I'm feeling alright. stuipd flu.

Topeak makes some good ones; i have a "road morph" which is like a mini floor pump with a hose, foot support and all, but it's small enough for a bag and goes to 120 psi no problemo. i also have a "pocket rocket" (insert joke here) that is much smaller (like jersey pocket small) and will go do 120 psi but only with some muscle. it's a bit bigger than a magic marker. about $25 at curbside cycle. the road morph was a MEC special, $30 or so.