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A Piece Of Cake Causes A Puncture
Blog Date - June 2015
Well it seems to be the time of year for my firsts. First solo rides and now first puncture.
Now not to do things by half I do not get my first puncture close to home I have it around 150 miles from home during a visit to Lincolnshire and all because of my love of cake. Yes cakes causes punctures ... fact.
I know it sounds strange that a light and fluffy cake can cause a hole to appear in your tyre but read on and all will be revealed. Well on second thoughts there are some culinary disasters out there, such as rock buns that unfortunately live up to their name but I digress..... usually cakes are tasty, light, fluffy sugar enriched pieces of heaven sent deliciousness.
So while having a delightful meander around the villages of Lincolnshire my belly tells me it would love some cake. I inform the boyfriend of my needs and so the search for cake begins. We ride past a church advertising a cake sale by the Women's Institute. I know these ladies usually know how to make cake. Did I not the say that cake was heaven sent ... it was meant to be surely.
We roll into the church yard and after climbing off his bike Ren looks at me and declares a loud unholy "OH S#!T". What an earth have I done wrong now?
What I have done wrong is simple. My lustful desire for cake as brought about a true sinners punishment. A large tack laid in wait in the church yard to deflate the spirits of one such as I.
Now to be fair as punctures go this was as gentle a let down as one could hope to have. No high speed blow out but still having a totally flat rear end is not a good feeling. I always find a pumped up more rounded rear to be much more to my liking.
Well in a situation like this there is only one thing to do ... eat CAKE. So we go into the church and order two cups of tea and ponder over the wide variety of delicious looking cakes on offer. We both go for the lemon and yum it really is heavenly but as good as it is it is not worth a puncture. While filling our faces we discuss what to do now.
The options are...
1) Call out the RAC and get them to take my bike home. Hmmm a possible but I will use this as a last resort if all else fails.
2) Find a local garage to fix the puncture. This being the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend the chances of finding such a garage open is probably zero.
3) Use tyre weld. I have brought with me a can of tyre weld. However this is back at the campsite some 30 miles away. I also know tyre weld is recommended for tubeless tyres only. Mine is a tubed tyre. But it sure seems worth of a shot at least.
So after plumping for number 3 as the best first option I have to pat my poor deflated Zen on his sorry seat and abandon him into gods care as I leave the church on the back of Ren's bike. Well we would leave if only Ren would stop flirting and charming all the old ladies in the church. They do seem to love him the ladies.
With little traffic and Lincolnshire's 50 mile speeds on most roads we are back from the campsite with the tyre weld in no time at all. With prayers and fingers crossed we release the tyre weld into the tyre. Hallelujah it only bloody well seems to have worked. Ok the proof will be in the riding but so far so good. The tyre is at least re-inflated. Well would you Adam and Eve it. Ren has a bicycle pump with him so we top up the air with that .
Now the instructions on the tyre weld say it is for a temporary repair only to get you to the nearest garage and to drive at a max of 20 mph. There is no bloody garage open to go to so it will be back to the campsite and I dare not just do 20 mph on a Lincoln road. One thing Lincolnshire drivers are not is patient. They are used to little traffic and getting a move on. I expect I would be flattened by an irate local at 20 mph. So after a nervous start I carefully increase the speed on the bike. 10 mph ... fine, 20 mph ... fine, 30 mph ... fine, 40 mph ... fine, and that will do nicely to get me back to the campsite.
Well that's the first hurdle done we will see what is to be done about getting all the way home tomorrow after a good nights sleep.
In the morning the tyre is down again. Urghhh not completely flat but with only around 3 psi in it its not looking too good. Ren re-inflates the tyre with the bicycle pump and we wait. It seems to hold ok. The tyre is clearly leaking air hence its flatness in the morning but it is not gushing out so therefore must only be losing the air gradually. We decide we had best abort today's plans and rather than go home in the evening we will go home now and try to limp poor Zen home slowly, stopping at garages on the way to keep pumping up the tyre.
At the first garage we inflate the tyre slightly over its normal tyre pressure of 31 psi to around 34/35. And off we set. I have no idea if we will make it and I am rather nervous of riding the bike such a distance and way above recommended speed with tyre weld that is not even for a tubed tyre at all. Ohhh well lets ride it and see. After the initial inflation the tyre does not require further inflation all the way home. Dual carriageways mean the bike gets up to 55mph on the way and the tyre weld does its job perfectly. Ok it does more than its intended job, ok it does way, way more than its intended job. It get a tubed tyre motorcycle 150 miles home at speed. That is awesome. Thank you tyre weld and thank you Ren for telling me to always carry a can of it in the first place and making sure I get home safe that day.
So my advice to all fellow riders is if you carry anything at all make it a can of tyre weld, it may just save you from burning in hell if you ever do give into the temptation of the sinful CAKE!!
Thanks Batty, but you're not pumping fast enough!
Reader's Comments
Ren - The Ed said :-
Just a note for the readers. Sharon refers to the brand "Tyre Weld" in the same way we refer to a vacuum cleaner as a Hoover. The actual can of "temporary tyre repair gloop in a can" was purchased from Aldi of all places.
While I myself have used various brands in the past with success it is not dead certain that the "tyre repair gloop in a can" will always work, especially with tubed tyres.
Also of course follow the instructions on the can. If it says don't exceed 20mph then you shouldn't. Sharon is a professional stunt woman (or idiot) and we covered all 150 miles of our return trip on closed private roads accompanied with trained medical professionals after a full Health And Safety assessment. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post - that we know of.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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