Patching

Last night, I had to apply some patches for OpenBSD, which some of you may know is my favorite operating system. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's software like Windows or Ubuntu, or Mac OS X. Except more secure and not very easy for people who aren't nerds to use.

My least favorite part of patching any system is the part where you have to reboot, and the computer is not in front of you, but 15 miles away or even further. If something didn't go right, I'd have to mess with a bunch of stuff to fix it.


Today: Patching a pinch flat.


Also, taking advantage of this awesome sunny weather to recharge my radio. I haven't yet had to use the crank to charge it up. I know from past experience that cranking for power sucks, but on just solar power alone, it lasts many hours at a reasonable volume with mixed flashlight use. It finally died on me this week. I usually leave it in the window to charge.

Re-evaluating

Back in September, I got a flat. It was the kind of freaky road trophy that would have decimated the heartiest of anti-flat methods, kind of like this except it missed my rim. Otherwise, these tires went 3,000 miles before wearing thin and needing replacement due to normal wear. I've never, ever flatted my knobby tires. Ever. Only the occasional slow leak and worn-through stem, all of which held enough air to get me where I was going without riding on the rim or stopping to air up every 2 miles. Gone are the Forte Slick Cities (with Hybridzilla, where'er she may be) and the Budweiser Bontrager Select (cream of the crap), the only tires I ever flatted repeatedly.

It is for this reason that I'm re-evaluating things, at least for the winter. I've been using my Trek Sideloader wedge as a camera case lately because the CatEye handlebar-mounted light makes my previous camera-toting method impossible. I keep a spare tire, levers and patches in the back of the Sideloader, but the rest of my "stuff" goes in my drive-side pannier. "What stuff," you may ask?

• Park Tool MTB-3 Rescue Tool
• GI Ultraflate 2
• 3 spare cartridges for it
• Blackburn MTN Air
• Cable Lock (for quick in-and-out lock-ups)

Why keep a hand-pump and CO2? This time of year, I swap bikes on a whim. One CO2 cartridge won't even put a dent in my 1.95" Knobbies. The hand pump will only get my road tires up to about 80 PSI -- and the last 20 pumps are arduous to impossible! Given my recent track record, though, I'm left wondering why I even bother carrying any spare tubes or inflation devices to begin with. In the last half of '08, though, I think I used CO2 3 times for myself (once just to add pressure to The Goat so it was easier to ride the full commute), and probably 10 times helping others.

Furthermore, I haven't had a mechanical failure en-route that couldn't wait until I got home or to work. Again, most of the times I've used the multi-tool in the last 6 months, it's been to help others get back on the road. I've only seen a handfull of riders since winter weather really set in, and they all looked just as prepared, if not moreso than I.

I'm leaving the CO2 and multi-tool in my desk from now on, at least until "bicycle season" (heh) is back. I have a full set of tools and a floor pump at home. I'll keep the Blackburn pump in the pannier because it switches between presta and schrader with ease, and I can limp home on The Twelve with 80 PSI if I really have to. I am not a weight weenie, but it's amazing how much lighter my pannier feels holding only a cable lock and hand pump.

When the days start getting longer, I'll go back to running with only one headlight and have the ability to mount the camera on the stem again. I'll have room in the Sideloader for the stuff I'm leaving behind. Then, I'll be ready when the helpless cyclists re-appear.




And no comments on the woes of CO2. I've heard them all before, and I do not want to go buy an expensive Road Morph or frame pump. This works well for me (and for those whom I've helped) when needed. I just haven't needed it in a while.

Out of commission

I picked up a new tire, but must have done something wrong (I'm guessing I damaged one of the glueless patches or pinched the tube in the bead while installing).

Regardless, my cheapo old tire levers can't get the EXTREMELY TIGHT tire back off the rim, and my good tire levers got stolen with my Hybrid. I have some running around to do after work anyways, so I'll just take the Dreaded Bus in the morning, take the bus to midtown after work, then car-pool home with my friend after the meeting in midtown.

I'll probably get some better tire levers over lunch tomorrow. River Market Cyclery's just a mile away from my office.

So it went kinda like this...

Not exactly the worst commute I've ever had. But close enough.

Something doesn't look quite right.


I couldn't dislodge it by hand, and didn't have any pliers. Thanks again, Dave. Oh yeah, I needed THREE tire levers for the Bonti Hard Case tires, so the integrated ones in the MTB-3 came in useful today.


Grimy. Zogics CitraWipe to the rescue.


Spider Web with raindrops. Yep. Rain, too.




Oh yah. More of me in the news. Seriously, Kansas City media needs to find some fresh faces. My ugly mug should NOT be the face of cycling in KC.

The multi-sport commuting obstacle course

First event: Bicycling!

I rolled out into crazy headwind after work. I coasted down Broadway, took off down Southwest Boulevard, and got a ways past the brewery when the sidewall blew out on my front tire.

Now, the sidewall's been ailing for a while. I got this bike a year ago today), and this is the original factory front tire. For a while, my brake pad was rubbing the sidewall. I've been keeping my eye on it, and meaning to pick up a new Bonti hard case tire like the one that's remained trouble free on the rear wheel for many months. I guess I just didn't replace it in time. Not sure what finally triggered the inner tube failure. I was on flat, smooth pavement and not hitting the brakes. It just went PFFFF! Pfff-pff-pff and was flat.



Second Event: Bicycle Hiking. Also known as "The Walk Of Shame"
About 3 miles from my tire failure sits the closest reliable stop for the Dreaded Bus. So begins the Bicycle Hiking. I walked. And walked. And walked some more.


I had more than enough time to make it to the bus stop. I took my time. Took some pictures. I even posed my bike as if everything were hunky-dory.

IRS Facility's parking garage security gates. These have nothing on my data center's entry ritual.


Skyline from the IRS Building. You can see clouds forming.




Looking to the east towards the northern part of Crown Center. The Link (skywalk connecting Crown Center and Union Station) and the Union Station Fountain are visible.


Union Station.


I think this is the main Kansas City Post Office. Not positive, though.


Next Event: Bus Riding.
Not much to say about this one. I took the bus a few miles to get me within walking distance to The Trek Store. Then, Another Hike Of Shame. About 3/4 mile worth.

Fourth Event: Fixing a tire.
I picked up my new tire and a new inner tube, then went to work fixing it myself right there in the shop.


With all that out of the way, it was time to hit the road. Lots of weather bubbling up. Major props to New Media Meteorologist Ed Roberts and the Kansas City Weather Podcast for keeping me and so many others in the loop via live chat. I really appreciate it.














Random Tunage:
Eiffel 65- Europop
Bryan Adams - Heaven

Waking the dead at midnight

After I got home with Hybridzilla last night, I sprayed the drivetrain off with my water bottle and wiped it dry. I let it sit to finish drying a bit. Before I went to bed, I re-lubed the chain, brought it inside, and turned in for the night. This was around 10:30 or so.

At about 11:45, I was sound asleep, and was awakened with BANG!!!! HISSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss... Followed by a ton of clatter, banging, and god knows what else. I figured my bike's tire had popped and the bike itself may have fallen over. The bike was still upright, but the noise had to have awakened the dead.

It turns out that the cats have a certain aversion to loud hissing noises. My cats don't even like this hiss of the floor pump as I pull it off the stem after topping off my tires, so this noise scared the hell out of them both. As it turns out, my youngest cat was asleep on one of those 5' tall cat posts with a nest at the top. She launched from it with enough force to knock it over, then proceeded to jump up on the counter in the kitchen and knock almost everything over in an attempt to find some kind of shelter from whatever doom she feared would come of the failed bike tire. This made a considerable mess (okay, only spilled water from a knocked-over drinking container but still).

So, I spent the next 30 minutes cleaning up messes and putting a new tube in Hybridzilla. The Schrader valve actually had a blowout at the base of the stem. I'd never seen that before. This is an old tube with 5 patches on it (including 3 park tool glueless) that had been filled, refilled, and moved between rims more times than I could count. There's no patching a stem, though. It had a good life and served me well. Remember what I had said about how much of a pain it is to work on these SlickCity tires? Well I had to do it all over again, this time using my only spare 26" tube. This is a new one I bought about a year ago that's never been used. I've had really good luck with all of my knobby tires, as I've never, ever flatted with knobbies. The SlickCity tires do pick up goat-heads and glass and they're getting kind of thin, hence the number of patches in the one tube.

My heart was still pounding and adrenaline still pumping when I lay back down to go to bed again. It took a while to calm down and fall asleep. I'd pay for that this morning. My alarm went off at 5:00 but I turned it off and passed out again. Fortunately, my wife woke me up with 15 minutes to get ready and out the door. Without time for breakfast, I grabbed a few bananas and packed them with my clothes.

I was greeted this morning with really nice temperatures, but crazy humidity in combination with rainwater already on the road. To match the humidity, wind out of the south was at a static 25 MPH with gusts well into the 30's. Not fun at all. Combined with a start that was 5 minutes behind schedule, I barely made it to the bus stop on time.

I needed the coffee this morning, badly. Lorin, JR and I talked bike shop and discussed the various people who were "admiring" our bikes.

So, how was YOUR morning?

Random Tunage:
Binary Finary - Freshwater (Jose Amnesia Mix)
Binary Finary - Decoder

Okay, this is NOT random tunage. This is an album that's about 2 years old that I just found out about, and it's awesome. Binary Finary, about a decade ago, put out a track called 1998. It was awesome and got remixed into oblivion (and subsequently named 1999, 2000, etc), and many of those remixes were usually good. They were included on many Electronic music compilations. As such, that's all they ever did, was that one song and a few remixes of it... or so we thought. This album has a bunch of other stuff from them. It's basically the missing album I was looking forward to buying a decade ago. And now I have it.

Sigh...

So, I've been battling a ridiculously slow leak after patching my rear tire back on the 12th. I'm talking going from 100 PSI to 70 PSI overnight or while I'm at work. Enough to where I can pump it up before my commute and get home with the rear tire starting to get teeny bit squishy.

So yesterday, I tried to find the leak. Impossible. I had the whole tube under water at about 20 PSI (bulging) without a single bubble. It's that slow. I rolled it up and switched it out for the brand new 700x18-25mm tube that I had in my seat bag. I figure this slow leaking tube would make a great "limp it home" spare.

When I aired up the new tire, I noticed that it had a narrow area near the valve stem. I deflated it and examined it, and it looks pretty strange. I aired it up again and thought to myself that it might be okay.

Right after I made my last post, I found a really low tire. The trip to the PHP user's group meeting was the first time I'd ridden on the new tube. I definitely wasn't going to make it home. With a total of 4 CO2 cartridges and a spare (slow leaky) tube, I decided to see how far I'd get by filling the current tire up. It bought me about 20 minutes, which got me within a mile or so of home. I was losing about 2 PSI per minute, by my estimates. I had some CO2 left from that cartridge and finished it off. I decided I would go past home by about 2 miles to hit Turner Cyclery for some decent tubes. I ended up burning another cartridge on the way there. When I got there, they topped off the tire once more and told me to hurry. I was losing about 5-7 PSI per minute now, and it didn't have much left by the time I rode the 2 miles back to my apartment.

Thank goodness I bought that cheap 25 pack of cartridges, eh? Remind me to never buy 18-25mm tubes again. I bought two 28-32mm tubes for my 25mm tires. I know it sounds bad, but the one I installed tonight seems to be a perfect fit. I don't think it's any worse than the 1.75" tube that's in the 1.25" tire on the back of my hybrid. That's held solid for over 400 miles.

I put the other new tube in the seat bag, and stuffed the slow-leaking spare into the pouch I keep in my panniers that contains some extra tools and my first-aid kit.