Thread: Odd flats
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Old June 22nd 10, 02:50 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Peter Cole[_2_]
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Posts: 4,572
Default Odd flats

wrote:
Bang! HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Odd, no whoosh-whoosh-whoosh as the puncture spun around.

And the prolonged hiss stopped as soon as I stopped.

Well, a Slime tube can seal things like that.

But the front tire feels fine. Maybe it's the back tire? No, both
tires are fine.

Hmmm . . . Flip bike upside-down, peer more closely at tires. Nope,
both tires are fine.

Idly spin rear tire--nothing.

Idly spin front tire--HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

A dry branch goes bang! when it breaks under the front tire.

A dry leaf trapped just right between fork legs and the brake arms
makes a really impressive hissing noise if the tire just barely rubs
it.



Just don't do what a friend did and try to pull that leaf out while
riding -- he touched the tire, which drew his finger in. He was lucky to
get away with only a broken finger and collarbone. It's one of the first
things off-roaders learn not to do.


***

Foosh!

No doubt about this puncture, flat as a pancake in an instant.

A car ran over someone's purple sunglasses, leaving a sharp and
hard-to-see lens fragment, which my front tire flipped up to greet my
rear ti
http://i48.tinypic.com/301h7ie.jpg

My strangest encounter was with a CD jewel case lid. I was cornering and
didn't see it in the twilight and my front tire somehow adhered to it
enough to skate a couple of feet. I didn't go down (barely).


Made me long for a simple goathead. Reminded why I carry tire boots
and a rolled-up spare tire.


I stopped to fix a flat on my way home from riding a double century
(with no flats) and found a nail (concrete) through tire, tube, rim
strip and double wall rim, the point extending perhaps 1/4" above the
spoke bed.

I got a flat in the exact same point on a weekly club ride four weeks in
a row. I turned out there was a nearly invisible wire that took
precisely that long to nibble through the tube.

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