I've been laid up for almost a couple of weeks now after crashing my bike. My left (dominant) hand and forearm are in a cast while my reattached thumb ligament heals after surgery a week ago. Glad I finished overhauling my friend's bike a few days before my accident, because I can't do much at present.
Getting antsy as this would normally be a great time to do outside work and some cycling.
Anyway, yesterday a fellow cyclist came to the door. We didn't know each other at all, but he'd been told by some construction workers that "the guy in that house fixes bikes".
He'd picked up a big nail, which had punctured the rear tubeless tire on his beautiful month-old Giant mountain bike. The bike was shod with 29 x 2.3" tires, had full suspension, and was equipped with a very nice 1 x drive train. Huge low gear on the cassette - looked like around 50 teeth.
Rather than a quick-release skewer, the rear wheel had a large hollow axle that screwed right into the frame. Nice system, new to me, and looked very robust.
Anyway, we tried pumping up the tire, but it didn't hold. Then I noticed that there was a 2nd hole where the nail had come out the sidewall. Apparently the sealant doesn't do well on sidewall punctures. The LBS where he'd bought the bike is near my house - about 2 km away - but their service department has been very backed up. I didn't have any good patches left or might have tried to patch the holes from the inside.
But anyway, I did have a few tubes on hand, and so we installed one, with one-handed me doing more supervision than hands-on work.
A fellow in the neighbourhood fell for a nasty scam a few weeks ago - a young man came to the door, said his tire was flat, and asked to use the homeowner's pump. The good Samaritan opened his garage, got the pump out, and filled the tire. The young man departed, but a few minutes later the homeowner heard a noise from outside. His garage door was open, his expensive fat bike was gone, and the young man's department-store bike was left abandoned. Hardly a fair trade.
So all of this was in the back of my mind while I tried to help this fellow. But he seemed very respectable and legitimate. As it turned out, he is a judge. Furthermore, my wife later realized that they had gone to junior high together. Small world!
Felt weird converting a bike from tubeless to tubed, but he was a long way from home and glad to be mobile again.
Getting antsy as this would normally be a great time to do outside work and some cycling.
Anyway, yesterday a fellow cyclist came to the door. We didn't know each other at all, but he'd been told by some construction workers that "the guy in that house fixes bikes".
He'd picked up a big nail, which had punctured the rear tubeless tire on his beautiful month-old Giant mountain bike. The bike was shod with 29 x 2.3" tires, had full suspension, and was equipped with a very nice 1 x drive train. Huge low gear on the cassette - looked like around 50 teeth.
Rather than a quick-release skewer, the rear wheel had a large hollow axle that screwed right into the frame. Nice system, new to me, and looked very robust.
Anyway, we tried pumping up the tire, but it didn't hold. Then I noticed that there was a 2nd hole where the nail had come out the sidewall. Apparently the sealant doesn't do well on sidewall punctures. The LBS where he'd bought the bike is near my house - about 2 km away - but their service department has been very backed up. I didn't have any good patches left or might have tried to patch the holes from the inside.
But anyway, I did have a few tubes on hand, and so we installed one, with one-handed me doing more supervision than hands-on work.
A fellow in the neighbourhood fell for a nasty scam a few weeks ago - a young man came to the door, said his tire was flat, and asked to use the homeowner's pump. The good Samaritan opened his garage, got the pump out, and filled the tire. The young man departed, but a few minutes later the homeowner heard a noise from outside. His garage door was open, his expensive fat bike was gone, and the young man's department-store bike was left abandoned. Hardly a fair trade.
So all of this was in the back of my mind while I tried to help this fellow. But he seemed very respectable and legitimate. As it turned out, he is a judge. Furthermore, my wife later realized that they had gone to junior high together. Small world!
Felt weird converting a bike from tubeless to tubed, but he was a long way from home and glad to be mobile again.