Puncture - repair it or new inner tube??

[Mongoose]

They were Continental Race 28 tubes (at least I think they were unless they were of the Chinese variety )at £2.70 each!

 

[slowmotion]

I quite enjoy repairing tubes, but only back at home. What do you good people do when the smallest patch is a larger diameter than the squashed width of the tube when you have it deflated? That always stumps me.

 

[Colin_P]

Cut the patch in half or into quarters.

As for repairing tubes, once you have gone to the bother of taking your wheel off, removing the tyre and tube, it only takes a few minutes more to patch it.

I think the back tube on my hybrid is currently running with six patches on it !

 

[PK99]

It's too much faff patching out on the road, so i put a new tube in but take the holed one home. When i have enough to warrant a "patching session", I say "sod it" and bin the lot.

 

[Cubist]

Spread the glue over an area larger than the patch to make sure no corners or edges can lift, use chalk or talc to stop it sticking, and put it straight back in the tyre. The pressure of the inflated tube presses the patch against the tyre and save having to weight it down.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Tube repair and bottom bracket overhauls are what winter is made for. Wheel building and truing too.

 

[screenman]

We always noticed on club runs that the person who got the punctures also happened to have patches on the tube he changed or fixed. Maybe just coincidence. Along with changing a tube should the evil thing happen I also change my tubes once a year at least.

 

[PK99]

one point wrt use of sandpaper "to roughen" the tube surface. Not strictly true the real purpose is to remove the releasing agent that prevents the tube sticking to the mould in the manufacturing process.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Helpful hint - when I find the hole in the tube I mark it with a cross using a ballpoint pen. Make the cross bigger than the patch you will be using, and the area you will be abrading with the sandpaper. Then you will be able to judge where to centre the patch when you stick it down.

 

[KneesUp]

We always noticed on club runs that the person who got the punctures also happened to have patches on the tube he changed or fixed. Maybe just coincidence. Along with changing a tube should the evil thing happen I also change my tubes once a year at least.

It could of course be that the person in question had worn or thin/lightweight tyres, thus making punctures more likely.

I abhor the approach that says

'of course it can be easily and cheaply repaired at home with minimal equipment and be safely used for a long time, but sod it, they're dead cheap because they're made by people getting a pitiful wage and shipped half way around the world in bulk - and it's not like there is a finite amount of natural resources - so I'm going to throw away this serviceable item so it can lie in the ground for hundreds of years and use another'

Repair them - they're designed to be repaired.

 

[vickster]

When they go for me, they go big style and I end up with a hole the size of a £2 piece or bigger, not repairable anyhow!

 

[KneesUp]

When they go for me, they go big style and I end up with a hole the size of a £2 piece or bigger, not repairable anyhow!

Wow - what are you doing to them? I've never seen that.

 

[vickster]

Most recently, rode over an enormous chunk of metal. Time before, tube after being changed just lost air and then went pop at side of road (possibly overinflated but the pump read 100psi). Rode over a brick at speed, did both front and rears!. Somehow managed to pinch tube between tyre and rim

This all in the last year. Before that, no visits for around 5 !

 

[KneesUp]

Most recently, rode over an enormous chunk of metal. Time before, tube after being changed just lost air and then went pop at side of road (possibly overinflated but the pump read 100psi). Rode over a brick at speed, did both front and rears!. Somehow managed to pinch tube between tyre and rim

This all in the last year. Before that, no visits for around 5 !

Aha - I tend to avoid riding over obstacles I can see - that'll be the difference

A brick?!

 

[Dan B]

I'm in the "replace tube at roadside, patch old tube at home" camp. One other reason for doing it this way is to reduce the number of part-used tubes of rubber cement that I have to throw away because they go gunky and unusable after opening.