The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:28am on Saturday, 7th September, 2024:
Anecdote
I noticed on Thursday that my bicycle had a flat tyre, so I thought this morning I'd fix it.
Getting the wheel off the bike was harder than I expected, because the nuts were quite tight. Getting the tyre off to give me access to the inner tube was every bit as hard as I expected, and took the best part of half an hour. Getting the inner tube out of the tyre wasn't as easy as I was hoping, either, because the valve is rather big.
Identifying the leak was a breeze: put some air in the inner tube, dunk it in a bowl of water and look for the bubbles.
Last time I had a puncture, it was next to the valve and couldn't be fixed: I had to buy a new tyre. This time, it was opposite the valve. No problem!
I prepared the surface and opened an unused tube of rubber solution glue. Nothing came out: it had solidified in the tube. Never mind, I had a second unopened tube, so I tried that. Its glue had also solidified. So had that of the third unopened tube, which I inherited from my father-in-law. So had the fourth unopened tube, which I inherited from my father. OK, well I don't suppose either of the latter two had ridden a bike for several decades, so perhaps it's excusable that their rubber solution glues were now just plain rubber. I have, though, and was miffed that the same fate had befallen my own unopened tubes. I didn't have any opened tubes; I'm aware that they tend to solidify once exposed to air.
Oh well. A new kit is only £3.85 from Amazon, free delivery tomorrow, so I'll fix it then (or maybe next weekend if it arrives too late tomorrow). I don't need one of the kits that comes with tyre levers, as I have about ten of them.
I'm not worried by the dent in my finances that £3.85 represents, but it is a little disconcerting to realise that a wealthy person might be similarly unworried by a dent in their finances a hundred times that much. Hey, why spend an hour fixing a puncture for an otherwise perfectly-serviceable bike when you can buy a new bike that's puncture-free?
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Copyright © 2024 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).