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Saturday 12 March 2011

Jonny's bad day of biking

Not a great end to what should have been a nice morning out on the bike today. It all started last week when I thought to myself that I will get a puncture at some point so I bought a pump, levers and puncture repair patches. This all arrived on Friday and this morning I woke up early and started to play. I thought to myself that I didn't want my first experience of removing and repairing the inner tube to take place in the rain at the side of the road so in the comfort of my flat I went through the process of removing and replacing the inner tube on my front wheel. Yes, it took a while, but I did it successfully and pumped up the tyre to 100psi. With my new pump attached to the frame and the new tools in my biking-bum-bag I set off towards Richmond to meet some of the others for a ride around the park.

So there I was, riding down Notting Hill Gate enjoying the sunshine when I was coming up to a junction. Not sure where to go I pulled my hand-drawn map out of my pocket to take a look. I was so engrossed in comparing the map to the roadsign that I didn't notice the car in front had stopped. As I was holding the map in one hand I could only use the rear brake which I squeezed hard. My rear wheel locked up and I turned to avoid the car, hitting the kerb. I came off the bike in a rather embarrassing mess and landed on my knee making only a small hole in my man-tights and a massive hole in my ego. Keen to get away from the sniggering drivers I started to ride off only to notice that my front tyre had deflated, presumably from a pinch puncture caused by hitting the kerb.

A-ha I thought, I have all the tools to deal with a puncture right with me! So I took off the wheel and made myself comfortable on the pavement by Hammersmith station. I got the tube out, found the hole and patched it up. However, this is where my inexperience really shone through because in putting the tube back on, I managed to make about 5 more holes, and I only had 6 patches with me. By the time I had patched 4 holes I gave up and used my phone to find the nearest bike shop. I did the cyclist walk of shame and carried my bike 2 miles down the road to get a new inner tube fitted. The guy in the shop told me what I had done wrong and I think I've learnt from the experience. I'm going to practice removing and replacing the tube a couple more times till I can do it without breaking it and I'm going to repair my old tube to keep as a spare.

Unfortunately, with the time it took me to fail to repair the tube, plus the detour to the bike shop, by the time I got south of the Thames, the rest of the gang had tired of Richmond park and gone home so I turned around and cycled home :-(

Better luck next time I think.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jonny,Glad to see you are keeping upbeat about these set backs.. can only get better!Hope to catch up with everyone soon .
    Ruth

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