Bad Luck

My bad luck continues. Yesterday, Dave and I were riding to the Scarborough Bluffs when I got a flat tire, again. Luckily the weather was nice, and I had a spare tube with me. I was able to replace the tube and pump up the tire to the best of my ability with my mini-pump. Then we continued with the ride.

I was feeling really unlucky and dwelling on the fact that I'd somehow managed to get two flats in a little over a week. But there are some positive things to note. I'm getting my flats out of the way early in the season in two ways. First, just statistically - I mean, how unlucky can I really be? Second, I'm learning something from each flat.

As you may recall, my first flat was probably cause by under-inflation. So now I pump up my tires before every ride. This flat was caused by over-inflation. While my tires are capable of withstanding 145 psi, my old rim tape, unfortunately, is not.

Rim tape covers the spoke nipples and prevents the tube from sinking into them and rupturing, or at least it does when it works properly. When I inspected the tube this time, I found that it had formed little bumps at every nipple and one of these bumps had a hole in it. The rim tape was ruptured at the corresponding spot. For now I just patched the rim tape and I'll be inflating my tires to 120 psi, but in the long run I should probably look into getting the rim tape replaced.

All in all, it was a bummer to get another flat, but as I said, I'm learning something each time. It's definitely a confidence-booster to know that I can fix a flat tire on the side of the road. Also, when I got home, I checked my tire pressure, and I had actually managed 85 psi with my little pump, which is the minimum recommended pressure for my tires. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to pump them up high enough (putting me at risk for a pinch flat) because, believe it or not, you actually have to exert 85 pounds of force to inflate a tire to 85 psi. When I'm using my floor pump to go up to 140 psi, which is more than I weigh, I have to use all of my body weight and kind of fall onto the pump. It's a funny sight.