In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Greg Hall) wrote:
| Was reading the TdF review issue of Cycle Sport and came across the
| report of viewing the Alp du Huez stage. The reviewer (or a member of
| his group) ran out of spare inner tubes and patches so relied on an
| obscure fix of stuffing the tire with grass to make is home. Has
| anyone heard of this or tried it?
I've had the unfortunate opportunity to try it. A few years ago I was
bike commuting back home on my road bike when I got a flat in the rear
tire. And the spare tube I had hadn't been patched from the last flat.
And I was out of patches.
I remembered some outdoor show on PBS mentioning the above technique, so
I thought I would give it a try. I pulled up a bunch of long, dry grass
/ straw by the side of the road and proceeded to stuff it into the tire.
It was hard to get it to distribute evenly, and when I finally got the
tire back on the rim, grass stubble was sticking out in various areas.
I got back on the bike and proceed along slowly, thinking that the
technique wasn't half bad -- the bumps seemed to distribute out evenly,
and as long as I was riding slowly things were OK.
That's when I got to a big downhill run. As I started to coast down the
hill and pick up speed, the rear tire did its best impression of an
unbalanced washing machine. WHUBBA WHUBBA WHUBBA it shuddered, as bits
of grass and straw periodically flew out. By the time I got to the
bottom of the hill, the grass had somehow redistributed itself in half
the tire, leaving the other half empty. I ended up taking the tire off
and removing the rest of the grass, then walking my bike home the rest
of the way.
Maybe next time this happens, I'll try the "fill the tube with water"
technique, just to see what fun ensues...
-- Tim Olson