Puncture hunting

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I jumped on my bicycle and set off in a rush a few days ago, only to find that I had a flat tyre! I hadn’t made it past our neighbour’s house before I realised that the bike didn’t feel right at all. I had to turn back and resort to walking instead. So one evening’s ‘entertainment’ was hunting for the puncture. Mending punctures is not so difficult, especially when it’s the front wheel because then you don’t have to deal with the gears as well, but sometimes finding the right place can be a bit tricky. My method is the tried-and-tested one of immersing the partially-inflated inner tube in water and looking for bubbles. Of course when you first put the tube under water lots of bubbles form on the surface so you have to brush those off and then wait and you should spot a telltale stream of bubbles rising to the surface. In this case the puncture was very small but eventually I did see a tiny bubble appearing at the surface and popping, and then another, and another… So I circled the source of the bubbles with a wax crayon. Then I lifted the tube out of the water and carefully dried it. The next bit is the real problem though, because you are meant to roughen the surface of the tube to make the patch adhere better, and of course as soon as you rub the tube with a bit of sandpaper you rub off the crayon mark and then you can’t find the hole I had to dunk it back in the water three times to be sure I had the right place, but after that it was relatively straightforward to apply the vulcanising solution, wait until it was almost dry and then smooth on the patch. After that I checked the tyre thoroughly to see if I could find the cause, such as a thorn or pin stuck in the tyre, but I couldn't find anything. Then after giving the mended tube some more drying time I rubbed it all over with talcum powder (to stop it sticking to the inside of the tyre) and refitted it into the tyre, then popped the tyre back on the wheel rim, then the whole wheel back on the bike and hurrah! I am fully mobile again! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.