Cycling UK Forum

Had to get to work rather fast yesterday, so just chucked the laptop on the trike and got in quite fast.

Thought "Oh, not carrying my main two bags is quite nice" and left the fairy repellent at home again today.

Also decided to cruise up the hill to work, so strayed a little further left than normal.

Well, the fairies have clearly been on the lookout. Nasty visit (but kind driver passing called her husband to come from just round the corner - popped to his shed where he had 6 bikes lined up ). It was sufficiently slow that a decent pump brought it back to pressure enough to get to work...

Moral - never forget the fairy repellent, they are always watching.

I forgot once, years ago and got a 6 mile walk and blisters to help my education.
The fairy enlisted the help of its main allies, the hedge-cutters.

I popped across 'town' once to deliver a letter, left my main cycle bag at home, and yes, the fairy visited!

Theres this Universal law which states.................

It has several times happened to me that, needing an unbelievable bit of luck, I got it.

For example, in December I had a puncture that was unmendable at the roadside. (It isn't just that there were no streetlights and the temperature was -5, it was also a tyre so unbelievably tight that I broke all my tyre levers - I got it off with screwdrivers in the end, then threw the tyre, and tube, away). I was pumping furiously, but the distance between pumps had fallen to 500yds. Just at that point, the wife drove by. The wife has never previously driven past while I'm cycling home.

But I do now carry some reinforced tyre-levers and a tyre mounting tool. I've still got one of those tyres on the front wheel.

I had the idea last night of filling my tubes with tubeless sealant, having schraeder valves makes it easy to squirt it in with a syringe as you can remove the valve core.

Tubeless sealant isn't gloopy sludge like much of the other stuff you get to do the same job (although it need replenishing now and then). It should keep the fairies away.

Can even carry a small bottle of it around, on my bike it will be a lot easier than removing the rear wheel that's for sure:

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... tion-28774

I once did a 70-odd mile ride over remote fells, inadvertently without tools, puncture repair kit or spare tube and got away with it, (this is the exception that proves the rule!)

Also, years ago during the autumn hedge cutting season, I had 5 punctures in one day and ran out of patches so, thinking outside the box, I removed a previously used patch cut it in two re-applied one half and stuck the other half over the latest hole. It got me back the last 10 miles!

mountainman531 wrote:I once did a 70-odd mile ride over remote fells, inadvertently without tools, puncture repair kit or spare tube and got away with it, (this is the exception that proves the rule!)

Also, years ago during the autumn hedge cutting season, I had 5 punctures in one day and ran out of patches so, thinking outside the box, I removed a previously used patch cut it in two re-applied one half and stuck the other half over the latest hole. It got me back the last 10 miles!

No - you didn't know you didn't have the kit...