punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate........

..............actually that's a lie, the bicycle was punctured somewhere around Hanlon's Corner. I wheeled it the rest of the way and got busy rectifying the situation at home. Punctures are a pain in the bollix and I usually just buy a new tube. Not very eco-friendly I know but its so much easier. I remember as a kid there was a complete ritual around the fixing of the puncture. You got a basin of water and inflated the tyre, insomuch as that was possible, and you put it into the water to find where the air was escaping. You'd then use some sandpaper and a bit of chalk to prepare the surface and you'd apply the patch with a small tube of vulcanized rubber.

Upon inspecting the tyre this evening I found a shard of glass to be the offending item. I'd only changed the tube in my wifes bike on Saturday last due to a similar glacial intrusion. These shards of glass are beginning to wreck my head. I didn't have a spare tube so I've had to go through the age old ritual as outlined above. I always forget how dirty your hands get when you have to change a tyre. Believe you me, the roads are pretty dirty. When the dirty road dirt meets the oily bike dirt it makes for a special kind of dirt that the toughest of domestic cleaners won't shift. I remember we used to use a special soap in metalwork class called Swarfega but even that stuff wouldn't shift bike dirt. Bike dirt is up there with the best of the dirts.

I was then wondering if there was someone somewhere on the internetosphere who'd go to the bother of telling you how to fix a puncture. As I found out there's plenty. For any saps who don't know how to fix a puncture, your prayers have been answered:


How To Fix A Bicycle Puncture