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Razor Blades & Bike Tubes
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I teach high school & had an incident at the beginning of the year where a student had a razor blade on his person that he swore up and down was for his bike tubes. Granted, I've never ridden or raced BMX (like this kid), but I've never come across a situation where a razor blade was necessary for anything to do with bike tubes. (The incident's been a sticking point all year and came up again this morning during a conference.)


#cureMS
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [dseiler] [ In reply to ]
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I teach high school & had an incident at the beginning of the year where a student had a razor blade on his person that he swore up and down was for his bike tubes.


Not sure if this is the connection, doubtful if the kid is a BMX rider, but when we were racing years ago, and we raced pretty much exclusively on tubular tires, we would pack along a small x-acto knife in the repair kit to cut off quickly the now flat, glued on tire. You would cut the tire cross-ways 90 degrees to the rim. This would allow you to get a well glued tubular tire off much quicker.

I never had to do this in a race (Never flatted in a race in 15+ years of racing on tubular tires!), but did have to do it once on a training ride, when I was testing out my race set up!


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [dseiler] [ In reply to ]
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Tubulars glued on I could see it. Tubeless or tube type, I'd say it doesn't make any sense.

Not even know how to glue tubs back in the day I had bought a tub HED 3 and that's how I got it off. Cut it as the person above described then pulled it off.

In this case, I google'd "race bmx tires" and a bmx web shop came up and I didn't find any tubulars.

In this case IMO whether for something legit or not I'd have to err on the side of school policy and safety. Many manufacturing places I've worked even banned personal knives or razor blade use to limit injury. Only company provided spring loaded non-locking box cutters were allowed.
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [dseiler] [ In reply to ]
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Tell the kid to show you how he uses the razor blade on bike tubes.
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [jimatbeyond] [ In reply to ]
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jimatbeyond wrote:
Tell the kid to show you how he uses the razor blade on bike tubes.

I had asked but all he could say was that it was for his "tubes."


#cureMS
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
Tubulars glued on I could see it. Tubeless or tube type, I'd say it doesn't make any sense.

<snip>

In this case IMO whether for something legit or not I'd have to err on the side of school policy and safety. Many manufacturing places I've worked even banned personal knives or razor blade use to limit injury. Only company provided spring loaded non-locking box cutters were allowed.

That was the case, and the kid couldn't explain—he even knows I ride but held his ground. Because he refused to yield the razor, police got called, and blah, blah, blah; and since, I'm the bad guy.

But whatever. I know I don't need a razorblade to change a flat tire on a bike.

Thanks for the response. It's good backup. :)


#cureMS
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Re: Razor Blades & Bike Tubes [dseiler] [ In reply to ]
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dseiler wrote:
jimatbeyond wrote:
Tell the kid to show you how he uses the razor blade on bike tubes.

I had asked but all he could say was that it was for his "tubes."


If the kid can't demonstrate how the razor blade is used on a bike tube, they should be suspended.
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