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smilingroadrunner

I've been riding the '70 TdeF the last few days on the clincher wheelset from the '72 TdeF.

I was lamenting my bad luck with my spouse this evening. I had glued the sew-ups earlier today and decided to ride around the neighborhood to help seat the rim-glue interface. I probably had not gone 3/4 of a mile, reached down to flick some road debris from the new front tubular only to realize a block later it had punctured.

I'd been hoping to spend some time on the new rims and sew-ups tomorrow and kind of get a feel to compare the ride of the Reynolds frame of the TdeF with my '73 Paramount----oh well ---maybe next weekend. (following an order for another set of tubulars).

She then reminded me to be thankful that it was only a punctured sew-up,---- as 18years ago on Easter Saturday 1990 I chrashed on a training ride fracturing my pelvis.

Wishing all, a SAFE and Enjoyable Easter!!!

_____________________
C.A.
Salina, KS

verktyg

C.A.

Good that it was only a flat.

Here's some stuff you might want to try before investing in new tires. I was skeptical so I bought some to try. I got an old bike off eBay with sewups that wouldn't hold air. One tire would stay inflated for several hours but the other went flat in a few minutes. I could see the goathead nubs and holes in the treads.

I put Tufo Tire Sealant in both of them about 6-8 weeks ago and they're still holding air. It doesn't work in every case for example pinch flats, side wall snakebite cuts or large tread cuts. It's a quick setting liquid latex rubber compound.

Their instructions say to remove the center part of the Presta valve and put in about 25ml of the liquid. Not all Presta valves have removable cores. They provide a piece of flexible plastic tubing to fit over the stem for non-removable cores.

Original Tufo Tire Sealant in 50ml bottle

New Tufo Tire Sealant in 35ml tube

http://www.tufonorthamerica.com/accessories.php

You can find this on eBay also a lot of online sellers have it and maybe your LBS too.

One other remedy, there is a place in Florida that does sewup repairs. They cut open the tire and put in a new tube for about $20 USD.

New Mexico was the goathead capital of the world. Two things that we did to help reduce the number of flats was to run lower tire pressures (85-90 PSI max) and use "Sticker Flickers"

http://www.bikeman.com/content/view/307/47/

A lot of times a goathead thorn wont penetrate the tire on the first rotation. These devices scrape them off before they do their damage.

For those of you unfamiliar with goatheads:

http://www.goatheads.com/home/gh1/page_41/about_puncturevine_a.k.a._goatheads.html

Here's a close up photo of them in a car tire (tyre):

Chas.

smilingroadrunner

Thanks Chas!!!

I'm gonna try this Tufo product. Gawd --I can't believe how many tubulars I probably retired for small punctures that this may help.

Interesting to learn more about the Florida site. I always tried to rationalize a replacement sew-up, as typically with care in watching what or where you were riding, I could sometimes get months if not a whole season without damage. Actually I believe a couple lucky ones actually were retired due to tread wear and casing thread exposure.

But more than a few fairly new -low milage sew-ups have been retired over the decades. (I tried years ago-- open casings and repair the tube---that never was the problem---it was closing the casing and glueing the seam tape---it just never seemed to work well--I would relegate some of the more successfull seamstess jobs as an extra spare). So a sealer or repair facility might be an option.

Glad to see the link to the tire flickers----Also the article on the goatheads. Since my youth I've always known this little thorny seed as Mexican Sandburs, quite prolific here in Kansas also probably the most common cause for bicycle punctures, and pain on the barefoot of summer & fall.

An aside: I hope to pull out the Gitane original decal set and compare with the Repros Greg has created. Will post some images for forum members to view (maybe even make a guessing game "which is the original A or B") Thanks Chas for the images you forwarded to Greg of the period correct Reynolds 531 stickers. I got my decals that I ordered from Greg this past Friday---really impressive, and I was suprised that the seat tube foil repro even seems to have a "thickness" that mimics the thickness of the original foil sticker. I would have thought the vinyl repros would have felt thinner.

As Always, thanks for the resources and options you've presented!!

___________________
C.A.
Salina, Ks.

verktyg

Here's the link to the place in Florida that repairs sewups (tubulars):

http://www.tirealert.com/

Chas.