I started riding back in the spring and whenever I need new tubes (been through a dozen but that’s another thread) I just roll into the LBS and rattle of the make/model of my bike and they hand me the appropriate tubes. This has worked fine until yesterday.
I’m doing an Oly in prep for an Half IM and on the second lap I go over a rough patch and the rear tire goes flat. I’m irritated but figure that I’ll be on my way in a few minutes. Whip out the tools and spare tube, go through the motions, but wait, the valve barely clears the rim. How in the hell am I supposed to get my CO2 in there? Push, pull, and wiggle all to no avail. Go through two cartridges trying to make it work but alas, my first DNF.
Moral of the story: Know your equipment and double check what the crew at the local store hands you before walking out the door. I now know that I need 60mm valves and will never let that happen again.
sorry to hear about the DNF. reminds me of what an old wrench used to tell me, “learn how to do this yourself because no one will ever care as much about your equipment as you will”.
Amen. The responsibility of maintaining your equipment rests on the athlete ultimately- since the athlete ultimately suffers the consequences if it fails.
Always double check your equipment. No professional takes offense to you doing this. It is like President Reagan said, “Trust… but verify.” It is a mark of professionalism to double check your equipment, not a slight on those who have worked on it. It simply means you take yourself seriously and take responsibility.
Treat your equipment as though your very life depends on it. That means always double checking it. Always. On a very fast descent on lightweight equipment or in a traffic situation your life may depend on your equipment working correctly. Bike shops do their best- but they are human too and we make mistakes. Check their work. Learn your bike. Take responsibility.
I have a buddy who runs a bikeshop who provides on-site wrenching at a number of triathlons and cycling events in the area. He told me just the other day that I’d be shocked at the ridiculously dangerous and stupid things he sees when people bring their bikes to him at triathlons. He says it would make him think twice about wanting to be out riding/racing among them ('cuz as we all know, it’s not usually the person who crashes that gets hurt, but the poor innocents they take down with them).
I know one guy who’s been doing triathlons for well over a decade. His chain was jumping a bit on his rear sprocket during a training ride. I told him he just needed to turn his barrel adjuster on the rear derailleur. He gave me a blank look. I told him to stop and I’d do it. He didn’t trust me … thought I was going to hurt his bike. I finally convinced him it wasn’t rocket science. So he let me do it. About 1/2 turn of the barrel and it was golden … and he thought I was a miracle-worker.
SHEESH!
Maybe this is already on the main ST website, but if not, maybe a basic maintenance article would be a really helpful thing.
Treat your equipment as though your very life depends on it.
i think of that EVERY time i bomb a descent on the tubulars that my main wrench glued for me (i pay a pro to do that for me)…i have literally entrusted my well being and possible existence in this guy’s ability to glue a tire.
tom your response was timely as i just e-mailed your “pre-race tuneup” article to a friend who had neglected his shift cables for 3 years. his right cable snapped yesterday during a race.
Treat your equipment as though your very life depends on it.
i think of that EVERY time i bomb a descent on the tubulars that my main wrench glued for me (i pay a pro to do that for me)…i have literally entrusted my well being and possible existence in this guy’s ability to glue a tire.
tom your response was timely as i just e-mailed your “pre-race tuneup” article to a friend who had neglected his shift cables for 3 years. his right cable snapped yesterday during a race.
I agree - while I’m pretty competent with my bikes, having done a lot of my own work for years - there are just some things I do not screw around with. Gluing tubulars is a big one of them. The Zinn and Park books do cover most of the things people should be able to do on their own though, and I recommend them to people.
And speaking of that…
Last week I did a sprint on my race wheels. Morning of the race, the front would just not hold air. My pre-race debugging had me thinking the valve core in the extender went bad, and I ended up putting CO2 in it in T1 and later on the course as it deflated a bit. The air loss wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t ideal either. Over the weekend I had a chance to look at it in more detail, and boy was I surprised. After dunking the wheel in water I was able to trace the problem more precisely - the tubular had been peeled back with some force and there was a very straight cut near the valve. The last race I did on these wheels a few weeks ago, when I packed up my stuff I found gum/putty shoved into my rear cutout - and it had been clear when I finished the race (race photos show that).
No matter what happened to that wheel, I should have tested and checked it a lot more carefully before this most recent race. Needless to say that wheel is getting a new tire put on by a professional this week.
I just spent all day Saturday with the bike, I added some new aero bars which allowed me the opportunity to replace my shift cables. I learned more about my bike from this experience and most of all I am not intimidated by messing with the derailleurs (Sp?) There was a minute or two when I disconnected the cables from the rear that I thought, oh crap I may have ruined this. Luckily I had just bought the Zenn book for Tri bikes and it walked me through putting it all back together.
Now I feel much more confident about my bike and no longer treat it like a fragile piece of glass that is going to break if I turn a single screw. Now I turn the screws to see how much shinier I can make it. Btw, the new areo bars not only look bad ass, they are super fast.
I started riding back in the spring and whenever I need new tubes (been through a dozen but that’s another thread)
Wow!
Where do you ride? What tires are you using? Are you really repairing the flats/punctures properly? I don’t think that I have had that many flats in the last 10 years of riding and I ride on some truly awful roads - sometimes gravel and dirt for long stretches. I average about one on-the-road-while-riding flat a year!
No kidding, this is driving me insane! My first seven or eight were all on the front and now the rear has joined the party with three in the past month. I’ve checked the tires and wheels and there are no thorns, glass, etc. I keep the psi at 110ish.
Only one was obvious, as I had a thorn sticking out. The roads I ride do have a fair amount of small rocks in the bike lane which isn’t ideal but I’m always on the lookout and try to avoid as much as possible.
Yesterday I was flying around a corner at an intersection that had brick crosswalks. As soon as I hit the bricks (which everyone else was handling without issue) the rear went flat.I’m rolling on the stock Felt B12 tires and have tried at least three brands of tubes.
Now, it’s almost a small victory if I go for a ride and don’t get a flat.
NO one touches my bikes except ME!! I do all my own repairs and maintenance. My bikes have not been to a bike shop in…oh…17 years? Except for the day I buy them.
17 years ago I took a bike maintence/rebuild class sponsored at the local bike shop. $100 for the whole class. 2 days per week in the evenings for 8 weeks. We took apart and rebuilt our own bikes, everything. From bar tape to hubs and bb rebuilds. It was a great class and worth its weight in gold!!
check and probably replace your rim strips. they’re the strip of cloth or plastic that protects your tube from the sharp edges on the spoke holes in your rims. if you can see the edge of any spoke hole that is an easy cause for a flat. some wheels don’t have spoke holes that go all the way through to the inside of the rim and hence don’t require rim strips. But I bet yours do… rim strips and tires are two areas where manufacturers get cheap on the parts they spec.
Also check the tubes you’re flatting on - are all the holes in the same location? inside or outside of the tube (i.e. was the flat from a puncture of the tire or did it come from the rim?). Fleck is right, there is no way you should be flatting that much.
I don’t know what tires came stock on your bike, but try replacing those as well. life is too short to ride crappy tires.
i think of that EVERY time i bomb a descent on the tubulars that my main wrench glued for me (i pay a pro to do that for me)…i have literally entrusted my well being and possible existence in this guy’s ability to glue a tire.
I think this is one of the things I wouldn’t leave to a bike shop. Most everything else you can check, but how do you check that a tire is glued properly, unless you try to peel it off, and then you run the risk of loosening it.
JAM makes good points. Line up the tire label with the valve so you know where the puncture was relative to the tire, aiight. It’s a process of elimination, aiight, relative to where you are flatting and relative to the rim. It sounds like you’ve got to having something broken in the system relative to it functioning at the right level, aiight. Get out of the bike lane if you can, lots of shit in there relative to the main lanes.