Getting a punture help please

ritcho said:

Speaking of water, the last ditch effort (if pump fails/spare tube at home/patches box empty) is to 'inflate' the punctured tube with water from your water bottle... if the puncture is like a pin-[censored], it will hold enough for you to get home - try it out one day!

Ritch

maybe I am a little unimaginative at present but how do you get the water in through a presta valve?

endroll said:

maybe I am a little unimaginative at present but how do you get the water in through a presta valve?

I wondered the same thing when I went to test the idea at home with a recently punctured tyre. Determination, rather than imagination, led me to try filling my mouth with water and filling it direct into the valve. Obviously, this would be a problem if pressure was required. Luckily, water is not compressible so you can fill the tube up all the way, screw the valve closed and then ride off... on a rather squishy, not exactly rock-hard, tyre. Long valve stems prove their value here. [1]

Ritch

[1] Like I said, this is a last ditch effort at being able to keep going when stranded with a puncture without tools. I haven't _actually_ tested this 'live', but have tested it at home after reading about it - it held more than enough inflation to go up and down the street several times and still seemed ok at the end.

alison_b said:

[snipping lots of good advice]

... and, check your bike pump occasionally. Getting stuck along the Midland Highway because the pump that has been so faithfully carried around for years has died somewhere along the way is a bit disappointing.

happy riding!
ali

Good idea now that I have a floor pump at home and dont use the bike pump often ( I hope :eek: )

Got caught when I changed bikes. Appollo had schrader valves and new Avanti has Presta. Of course I took no interest in this minor detail until I had a Fsssst.

After 3 minutes of farting around with the pump ( Serfas Grifter Mini Foot Pump) and almost swearing I recalled that the mechanic at LBS did something to the connector when I bought the pump. I unscrewed the connector carefully, pulled out internal adaptor, turned it around, re assemble and Bingo! Such amazing powers of observation.

Cheers
Hugh