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It's not the problems you _expect_ which get you...

OK, here we are in the middle of Perth suburbia, cycling smoothly along bitumen roads, & the (rather excellent) bike develops a problem.

If I hadn’t physically seen it, I’d be struggling to believe it, since it hadn’t happened to me in about 30 years (& then in a remote mining town): I put a thorn through the tyre (& evidently the tube as well).

By “thorn” I’m talking about a 3-corner jack AKA cat-head AKA double-gee. The tube wasn’t thorn-proof, & thinking back over those 30 years (many of them spent cycling in Perth) I can fully understand why.

Sigh. I really need more stuff to fix — not. Let’s see if I can get hold of a thorn-proof tube.

Comments

Unknown said…
It's not too rare - last year I managed to get about 9 or more of these thorns in one tyre in one incident! 6 actually penetrated and punctured my tube. I also missed one of the small little thorn bits when replacing the tube and managed to get a subsequent slow puncture.

Last year after riding around 3000km I got rather good at replacing tubes :) This year I've already done close to 1500km and only have had 1 puncture. luck of the draw!

What you may want to do Leon instead of new tyres is get yourself some tyre liners - it goes in between the tyre and tube and can help in these situations. The other option is that + slime (injected into the tube, automatically seals punctures).
20 March, 2008 11:15
Anonymous said…
When in Broome a few years ago we had to replace the all of the tubes in our 3 wheel pram. At the bike shop where we got it done, they suggested some bright green liquid to put in the tubes. Apparently it stays in a liquid state and fills little holes and dries creating a seal. Almost 3 years on we haven't replaced any more tubes.

Sorry I can't remember the name of it, maybe try your local bike shop.
20 March, 2008 11:51
Anonymous said…
When in Broome a few years ago we had to replace the all of the tubes in our 3 wheel pram. At the bike shop where we got it done, they suggested some bright green liquid to put in the tubes. Apparently it stays in a liquid state and fills little holes and dries creating a seal. Almost 3 years on we haven't replaced any more tubes.

Sorry I can't remember the name of it, maybe try your local bike shop.
20 March, 2008 11:51
sen said…
I hve the blighters growing in my front lawn.. (that reminds me, I really needs to fix that).
A trick my old grand father taught me was to split open an old tube (cut the valve off) and layer that inside the tyre before putting a good tube in, it's a dirt cheap way of giving you thorn protection...
20 March, 2008 21:53
Leon RJ Brooks said…
1 shop in 6 had 28” (700mm) tubes, but no thorn-proof the right width — except for some of those green-filled versions, which had a different (high-pressure) valve.

So I got a standard (thornless?) tube, crammed it in (was a bit fiddly getting that underlay widget to work) & it worked flawlessy today.
21 March, 2008 00:36
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