I had just turned onto the D&R Canal tow-path off Quaker Road. I was riding Le Mouton Noir, my cyclocross bike, laden down with about 50lbs of groceries from Wegmans in my backpack, under a torrential late-June downpour. In other words, it was a perfect ride. But then, something didn’t feel right, my back wheel suddenly felt squidgy and unable to get a grip in the wet gravel and mud of the path.
I pulled off to the side of path (a sensible thing to do even when you’re the only person out in the driving rain) and stopped. I had a flat. Not a flat, exactly, since the sealant in the innertube had closed the breach with about 10 psi remaining, but flat enough. No problem, I thought, I’ll just give the tire a blast of CO2 and, if that doesn’t work, I’ll swap out the tube for a spare!
Only I had neither my CO2 inflator and cartridges, nor tire levers, nor anything else – they were in the saddlebag hanging off the saddle of my road bike. I have been in the habit of just swapping the kit between bikes, and carrying the necessary tube in a jersey pocket. I stood there, defeated, with the rain filling my shoes while a heron and a family of turtles looked on. “Stupid human,” I thought I heard them say.
I did not relish the 7-mile walk home in the rain. I could have called an Uber, I guess, but my experience has been that the number of Uber drivers who would let me load a muddy, dirty bike into their trunks is verging on zero. So, I started to ride home on a flat tire. Not totally flat, of course, and that was the thing: It is possible to ride on a rear flat, but don’t make a habit of it. Wider, knobby tires with thick rubber, like Le Mouton Noir’s 32mm Kendas, provide a modicum of grip and protection for the wheel rim, but it is probably best to refrain from riding on a flat 23c road bike tire.
I have, in fact, ridden flats to (mostly disappointing) finishes in cyclocross races without doing irreparable damage to the rim. That was usually on a 2-mile course, so I was asking a lot to ride 7 miles on what was essentially a cyclocross course. But I did have those 10 pounds, and I was pretty sure that I could ride carefully enough to avoid big bumps, rocks, and drops. I made it home at the blazing speed of about 7 miles per hour with bike intact.
But I felt like an idiot. Lesson learned. One of those is that, even though I have been doing this bike thing for nigh-on 45 years, the author of the Book of Proverbs (reputedly שׁלמה/Shlomo) was absolutely right: “Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Riding without a flat kit and tools is a total rookie mistake – one that I am certain that that paragon of wisdom would never have made. Flats happen; we don’t ride in a perfect world and any number of things can cause a puncture or a rapid loss of tire pressure, from debris on the road (see the pretty glittering glass!), to a worn-out tire, to an improperly-installed tube. I know that advocates of tubeless tires insist that they don’t need tubes (they’re tubeless!) and that they never get flats because the sealant in their tires always plugs the puncture. If you have read this far, you will remember that I got a flat in a sealant-filled tube.
None of us are immune to the inevitability of a puncture. On one recent club ride, one of my fellow riders (call him Garth for no other reason that I have always wanted to name a character Garth) went through three – or was it four? – tubes, trying to repair a flat. The initial puncture was bad enough, but each time he installed a new tube – while a dozen of us were waiting impatiently, no less – something would go wrong and “pfffthhhhhhhh…”
I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that, subsequent to the initial flat, the problem was that Garth either didn’t check the inside of the tire to make sure that a piece of glass or debris wasn’t still poking through the casing, or that he pinched the tube when he was re-seating the bead. It happens, and a lot more than you might think; there you are at the side of the road with a bunch of beady eyes behind mirrored sunglasses impatiently waiting for you to just get it done so we can get back to the ride! (Emphasis mine.)
Garth’s plight underlines another lesson; while he supplied the first tube in the woeful series, the others were donated by other riders. No one begrudged him a tube – butyl rubber tubes are cheap and, if a rider knows anything, the fundamental rule of cycling is that we help other cyclists (the first rule of bike club is that you do not talk about bike club… but that’s a story for another time) – but what if he had no tube to start with?
One of the nice things about riding in a group is that someone is bound to have a tube, CO2, or tools should you need them. That means that you don’t have to go to the bother of packing your own because your buddies will have you covered, right? Don’t be that guy. Nobody likes that guy. To be clear, Garth was not that guy; everybody likes Garth, which is why so many people offered up their tubes to him. Don’t even be the guy who gets a flat and has to walk home or call an Uber. Be the guy who has the tube, the levers, the CO2 inflater, and the multitool in the little bag under their saddle.
Resolving to always be prepared (I was once a Boy Scout – don’t judge), I set about acquiring the necessaries for Le Mouton Noir. I have an emergency kit for my road bike, so I knew that the basics are straightforward:
- Multitool
- Tire levers
- CO2 Inflator
- CO2 Cartridge
- Pre-glued patches
- Portrait of Alexander Hamilton or Andrew Jackson
- Something to carry it all
You can add whatever else you want to an emergency kit, of course. When I was a Scout (see above), I had an emergency kit with some bouillon cubes, waxed safety matches, and folded tinfoil, all of which were useful for making soup when you were deep in the bush. I also had an emergency flare and a length of wire that I could use to make a rabbit snare. I was a vegetarian even then, however, and the mere thought of eating a rabbit, let alone killing and skinning one, made me queasy. On the other hand, I had grown up reading Farley Mowat’s Lost in the Barrens, and I convinced myself that I had to be prepared for anything. Still, the chances that I will have to make a fire, let alone gut a rabbit, on a bike ride, are pretty close to the number of Uber drivers who would let me load a muddy, dirty bike into their trunks.
Most of the bike kit tools are self-explanatory: the levers are to get the tire on and off the rim the CO2 inflator and cartridge are to air up the tube/tire, and the multitool is to take care of pretty much everything else. It might be wise to carry a second CO2 cartridge because, as Elvis Costello sang, “Accidents Will Happen,” but I only had one left in my parts box.
The pre-glued patches (in this case, Park Tool GP-2 Super Patches) are not a permanent fix but they are useful when you damage your only spare tube when fixing a flat. They will at least get you home. They can also be used as a boot for your tire. While most flats are caused by snake-bites and pinches (when an under-inflated inner-tube gets pinched against the inner wall of the tire) or by abrasion against spoke holes on the inside of the wheel rim or against the edge of the valve hole, there is always the danger of an object or debris, like a shard of glass poking right through your tire.
This can cause problems, and not just because if you don’t check for and remove the object from the tire, it’ll just re-puncture your brand-new tube. An inflated replacement tube will sometimes push itself through the hole the object leaves behind. Given that road bike tires are typically inflated to 75-100 psi, it doesn’t even really have to be a big hole and, if you’re not careful, you will see a little bulge popping through your tire like a black bead… Just before it goes BANG! in your face.
To avoid this, insert a boot: just stick a pre-glued patch (you can also buy special-purpose adhesive boots like the Park Tools TB-2) over the puncture hole on the inside of the tire and, if it’s a big enough hole or tear, you can reinforce the boot with a tough, rigid, yet thin layer like a $20 bill folded in quarters. To be honest, a portrait of Washington or Lincoln would work just as well, but neither will get you very far if you decide to stop for a beer at the end of your ride. In which case, remember to replenish your emergency kit when you get home.
Once punctured, twice shy. I like to think that I’m a smart, experienced bike rider who’s seen it all, but I can be just as dumb as anyone else. The turtles were right. And that was the problem: I was both complacent and overconfident and I just didn’t bother to take one of the most basic cycling precautions. Be like wise Shlomo, I tell myself… Don’t be that guy.