I took three days off the bike to visit Paris over the weekend. When you get out of the habit of cycling, it’s tempting to take a few more days off. But, although it was windy and grey – the long-term weather forecast suggested freezing temperatures on the way, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get some relatively ‘warmer’ miles in – even if it meant getting wet.
Less than 1 mile from home, I heard the dreaded sissing sound. It was a front wheel puncture – some wet, sharp grit penetrating the Evo Corsa tyre – the tyre is quite good, but too light for mucky winter training miles. I mended puncture and went back home to pick up another spare inner tube (I always like to have two in saddlebag).
The second time of trying, I heard the dreaded deflating sound 4 miles from home, just on the outskirts of Oxford. Again I mended puncture and looked for reason for the double puncture. It may well have been some of the grit had got lodged in the tyre and avoided my inspection after first puncture. Again, I returned home – I was rapidly losing interest in a winter training ride on this front wheel. I planned to change to a Specialised Armadillo – like my rear tyre – why risk these kinds of punctures?
After returning home, it was time for lunch, so I had some honey on toast, and it was with a bit of effort that I decided to try third time lucky and go out again. – There’s always reasons not to ride in winter – If I’d got another puncture, that would have been curtains.
Rather than risk the front tyre, I swapped front wheel and went out again.
This time, I decided to try a different route – out of Marston towards Islip. Here, there was a very different kind of problem – flooded roads – it was really quite deep and the road was closed. Over in Islip, the long stretch towards Ambrosden was also flooded – so that entailed yet another U-Turn!
This was the fourth time, I’d done a u-turn on this ride, and I still hadn’t managed 10 miles!
Fortunately, after that I managed to clock up a few miles without incident. There was flooding for miles around though.
In total it took 5 hours to do 55 miles – giving me an average speed of 11mph!
Tips for Avoiding Double Punctures
- When putting on new inner tube, use your hands to put tyre back on (avoid using tyre levers, as these can nip the tyre between rim
- Check that no inner tube is stuck between rim and tyre – especially important if you had to resort to tyre levers.
- Check very carefully the tyre for remaining sharp objects (in this case I ran my gloves around tyre – I should have used fingers and dug a bit deeper.
- Be willing to throw tyre away if worried.
Weekly mileage last week
455 km last week.
- Sunday – 165 km Broadway
- Mon 19th – Rollers 25km
- Tues 20th – rollers – 32km
- Wed 21st – rollers 32km
- Thurs 22nd – rollers 32km
- Fri 23rd – Henley 96 km
- commuting into town 77km
Unless the big freeze turns into a heat wave, this week will be much less mileage, but after a good four weeks, no harm in having an easier week.
total 1719 km after four weeks! Above target!
Yep the flooding’s done for my mileage too. Is that picture from the road to Woodeaton? I tried to persevere through the floods at the start of the week, resulting very cold wet feet as it got a touch deeper than I expected.
they’re on my christmas list. can you get HR up high enough?
Well I’ve never tried doing hill climb eyeballs out interval. I think that would be pretty difficult on rollers. But, it’s high enough to get a good workout.
I use Continental Touring Plus tyres for commuting to work and due to the thickness of the puncture protection there have been times when a sharp object has become embedded in the tyre but can be very hard to find. I use the following technique to find any sharpnel that could be hiding in the rebound layer.
Horizontally place the wheel on the floor with the tyre still on. Take the innertube out and place it on the tyre in the exact position that it was in the tyre. Pump up the innertube and look for the place where the air is escaping. Now mark this location on the tyre. Check the inside of the tyre at that location to see if there is anything embedded in the tyre.
The last time I did this I found a piece of bottle glass that I couldn’t feel from the inside and I would not have seen it by visual inspection. I needed to pinch the side of the tyre together and use my fingers like a pair of tweezers to take out the shard of glass.
Thank Rob,
Great Tip.
how are the rollers working out?
Great fun. I might be doing quite a bit on rollers in coming weeks, though I haven’t managed more than a one hour session – yet. more fun that turbo.