It's now two weeks in a row when I've got a flat on my way into work on the first day of the week. Felt the dreared "rim rumble" of a deflating tyre as I rolled down the ramp into the basement at work. At least I made it that far, last week I had to get off and push the last 500m.
Bike has a crummy front tyre made by the usually reliable and efficient Teutonic types over at Schwalbe called a "delta cruiser". I've been meaning to bin it for a Marathon Plus for months, as A/ it's limited to 80PSI - MP can go up to 95 B/ the puncture resistance has always been suspect. But it always sort of just kept on going so I never quite got round to making the change...
Anyway, went down at lunchtime to effect repairs, to find out that I'd left my pump at home strapped to the other bike that I took out at the weekend and of the 2 spare tubes I always carry, one still has its puncture from last week. I also couldn't find a puncture repair kit in my saddle bag and then remembered I stopped carrying one as "I've always got 2 spare tubes".
Not to worry, I "borrowed" a pump off of someone else's frame and located the wound on the inner tube and traced it back to the tyre. Tiny piece of arrow-head red flint had penetrated all the way through the thickest part of the tread and is so small that the head of it has got inbetween the wire bands of the "puncure resisting" belt. It's amazing that you can be felled by something less than a millimetre across.
So I extricated the grit and pulled out the second spare tube, put a couple of illicit pumps of borrowed air into it only to hear "fsssssssssssssss". Quick eyeball of the tube and theres a manufacturing failure along the seams. No way this can be repaired.
So I'm now mulling over the options of taking public transport home and coming into work better prepared tomorrow or pushing up to Halfords after work to buy new tubes and - if they won't lend me one - a cheap inflation device.
So cyclingists, the morals of the story are;
* don't expect your Specialized inner tubes to work "out of the box"
* don't forget your pump
* don't be so lazy as to carry around a busted tube for a week when you could have patched it up in 10 minutes
* leave a wee puncture repair kit in your desk at work. They cost sweeties and could have avoided my current situation