Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Successfully Changed First Flat Tire

Well, I got up this morning to ride and was all set to go out at 3:45 a.m. Just before putting on my riding clothes I checked my tires. My front tire was flat! I was about to blow off riding when I thought "Hey! I'll try and change the flat myself."

Now I've only changed one flat on my bike for a couple of reasons:

1. I have not had many flat tires. I think I have had only 4 flats, including the one today.
2. The only one I changed went flat the next morning so I obviously did something wrong. Since then, I have had the bike shop change my other flats.

Everything went pretty good. I got the tire off okay, I got the old tube out, put the new tube in, and got the tire and tube back on the rim. I struggled a little bit getting the last section of tire back on the rim but I think that's fairly normal as that is the hardest part of changing a flat anyway. I think I remember when I changed my other flat that I tried patching the tire instead of just putting in a new tube. That may have been where I messed up previously. It was much simpler and quicker to just replace the tube instead of messing with patching it.

To top it off I went ahead and compeleted my normal morning ride and ended up with a top 4 time and average speed for that ride. Guess I'll be changing my own flats more often!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a good day! Maybe you should buy a lottery ticket now, too. But dude, 3:30-6:30 is prime time for S L E E P I N G ! ! !

Alice McD

Josh said...

Congrats on the Monumental Achievement... Lol!

Johan Jordaan said...

You have to inflate the new tube (or patched one) just a little before you put it in, that way you don't easily pinch it when you put the tire one. Most often when you change a tube and it is flat again shortly afterwards, you pinched it when you put the tire on.

ftwskies said...

Why not just keep a spare in the trunk? Oh, wait...

Never mind.

-- Jim <><

mdlea_eng said...

Corn-gratulations. Now you know that you can get back on the road if you flat in the middle of nowhere... ...that is, assuming you carry a spare tube, tire tool and a pump with you.