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 Is there a way to prevent getting punctures on my bike?

How can I stop getting punctures?

How do I repair a bike puncture?

  For the past 4 months I've absolutely loved cycling too and from work, its so peaceful with the right route and every day the scenery on my patch is amazing, fog, rain, different to look at and an absolute pleasure in Swindon Wiltshire....

That was until about 3 weeks ago when I got my first puncture and foolishly I had nothing on me to patch myself up, to make matters worse it happened half way home with a 5 mile walk ahead of me, but luckily the wife picked me up otherwise It would have been total bummer of a day!

When I got home and dusted myself off, I took the tyre apart and pulled this from my inner tube...

Its almost like a raptor claw! Its one hell of a thorn and was proper stuck through my tyre and inner tube, so the next morning I had to take a day off work and go shopping.

... the very next day I had another puncture, talk about bad luck.... anyway within 2 weeks I had developed 5 punctures and bear in mind 4 months prior to this I'd never ever had one!

Each time i'm pulling king thorns from my tyres and replacing the entire inner tube as I don't have time to mess around with punctuate repair kits and inner tubes were only £3-£4.

Then I started to do some research thinking there must be a way to prevent this from happening, it was driving me crazy, costing me money, wasting my time and ruining my love for cycling!

  ....so I came up with this...

your going to need;

4 x Spare inner tubes ( I had these from previous repairs)

2 Slime lined Inner tubes (not a fan of Halfords but it was quick and convenient £8 each if you can wait get them 2 for 1 off Amazon)

Bike Pump

2 x Tyre Liners (£8 for 2 wasn't bad)

Lots of patience (easier said then done!)

Scissors

First take your wheel off and remove the tyre and remove everything, take the empty tyre and check the contents for anything sharp. Best to do this by running your fingers carefully through the inside of the tyre feeling for anything spiky.

Empty? Good carry on!

 Next get yourself a tyre liner (there all pretty much the same I used ZEFAL tyre liners. The trick here is to get this inside the tyre as straight as possible. TIP* Its best to unwind it the opposite way that it came off the reel first to prevent it trying to roll itself back up.

Now get the tyre and start to feed the liner inside it and you want to go right around the tyre but leave about 1/2” gap so the ends are not touching. Now check each end... each end should almost ending on a circle, you don't want a straight cut make sure its curved using scissors.

Once the liner is right around the wheel with about ½ gap and NOT touching carry on to the next step.

  If the ends touch each other it may cause a pinch puncture on the inner tube, so we are doing this as preventative measure.

Next get a spare inner tube and fillet it, making sure the old valve is removed.

Once this is done feed the spare inner tube around the liner and again you want this to end without the ends touching and ensure that the ends end on the opposite side of where the liner ended... sorry you may need to reread that lol.... you also want to make sure that the inner tube is acting as a holder to keep the liner in place...

When I say ending on the opposite side of the liner, it could be you managed to get the inner tube filleted without actually cutting it into two parts, if that's the case well done...

next grab another spare inner tube, again take off the inner tube and put it inside the wheel and make sure it ends on the opposite of the other inner tube.

So you should have the liner ending on say 12 o'clock, the first inner tube ending at 6 o'clock and the 2nd inner tube ending at 12 o'clock.

Now grab the slim inner tube. Slightly inflate so its gains a bit of sturdiness and structure and put this inside the tyre... try and wangle this so everything inside the tyre is straight then attach to the rim... this is where you need patience... possibly lots and lots of patience...

the end result is a Tyre, Tyre Liner, Two inner tubes (not inflated) and your slime inner tube.

What you have now is almost bullet proof wheels, the liner should prevent all thorns penetrating through your tyre, the inner tube 1 will act as a deflector just in case one slips through and the second inner tube will prevent the liner from pinch puncturing your main slime inner tube.

If you go up a kerb or something jams force from the tyre/spoke/liner to the main slime inner tube then inner tube 1 should prevent this and act like a cushion...

If the worse does happen you have your slime tube to fall back on which should get you home. Generally if you are bolting home these slim tubes repair themselves so you may not even realise something tried to pop you.

As a rule every month or so I would stick a pump on your tyre and see if the PSI has gone down, chances are it may have dropped 0.5 during a self repair...

note these self repairs generally only work when you are going more then 10 miles hour as the gyro effect and gravity push out the slim to the outside of the inner tube...

Anyway when you are done, next step is to attach the wheel and begin pumping up the tyre. Most of my route is off road so I opt for 45PSI, a higher PSI ensures the tyre is more curved and creates less surface area for the tyre to touch the ground reducing the % of something coming through the inner tube.... Also this reduces friction so be careful in winter time you may slide a lot!

If this does work for you but not for long and you need better liners, buy yourself a big tape measure, strip it down and cut it in half and use that as a liner, its steel and bendy, use three inner tubes on this as it WILL snake bit pinch your normal running tube...

If you are in the gulf and have afghans shooting you, I would recommend you have steel lined garden hose around your inner tube (hozelock have some kick ass hose pipe) plus use with tape measure, this is the “best protection”

Also note; if you apply 30 PSI to a tyre and have either liner or tape measure inside, the pressure will force these tings to the outside of the tyre and hold them in place, its very unlikely they will move or slide around inside.

There is a slight chance of your entire tyre sliding around your rim if you have to much weight on the rim with too much pressure from the inside.

please take your time and test all contraptions before commuting to a fast downhill slope or a long commute and ensure everything is safe and watch your back.

If you are commuting to work this is for you, this does add a bit of weight to your chariot but it will give you confidence to cycle and not worry again.

  I hope this helps you all.

Cluster Headaches are starting again,

30th September 2014

1-2 weeks before this I had small shadowing (warning)

12 midnight wake up with dull pain, seemed to hit max within 5 mins, hasn’t done that for a long time. totally fucked me over. Wondering if neck exercises were a good idea as I felt Lots of scrunching and skull crack through my whole head..

Note the weather is foggy and bitterly cold outside, window was open, radiators were off at 9 ish cat was sleeping in landing. Pain went about 12:30am, completely pain free at 1248

(Neck scrunching is stand up straight tilt head back to limit and do 360 degree like a clock hand, one rotation at 6 o’clock scrunches.)

For the past 4/5 years I’ve randomly been suffering from what I can describe as pain behind my left eye and this morning I was awoken by it and for some reason I thought I’d start blogging it down and keeping a record in hope to show a professional who can use it diagnose me…

When my episodes start I am confused and find it hard to talk / form a sentence and mainly I fear any type of light and try my best to avoid it.

Even the faintest red standby light from the TV set is uncomfortably painful, and so I sit here with my partners big thick black Ralph’s Lauren sunglasses on which are far to small as they digging into the bridge of my nose, but its a nice digging feeling, it kind of feels soothing as its applying pressure to my bridge, yet they seem best for deflecting these rays of photons back from my iPhone…

Irony is how else do I blog this down when everything I find difficult and uncomfortable is preventing me from doing so, it’s a challenge… my sentences are not probably making much sense lol. Anyway…I’m over analysing myself and spending far to much time describing these glasses… I guess talking to the internet is only comfort I have, it’s far to early to wake the house…

I was awoken about 3:30am by it which is about the normal time it gets me. The pain starts in the left side of my nose and slowly seems to spread to behind my left eye and then to the back of my head… and then everything hurts at once.

there are three levels of pain, Normal; which Is a dull throbbing pain, with this I can function ok and go about my life but I feel a gentle reminder that any minute it could flare up and fuck me over. excuse the language but its an unpleasant worry, so I try my best to ignore it and carry on.

Then I have Hard. This means I’m fucked. Like I was this morning. Only one thing to do and that is pace around holding my head waiting for it clear. In this stage I can talk and converse but find it difficult to concentrate and sitting still is impossible.

So its sunglasses on, plenty of spitting and trying to clear my nose. My left nasal passage will be blocked and I have to try and suck whatever the mucus I have is; backwards through my nose and into the back of my mouth and spit it out. DISGUSTING I KNOW, but it helps, it sooths, so I have to do it.

Then there is Hardcore this is hell, this is dark room, every light has to be off, I generally pace around to distract myself or I will do my mecca praying which is on my knees with my head pushed into the floor putting all my weight onto my head trying to get comfortable.. it must look really bloody funny seeing someone doing that but it helps. These episodes can usually last about an hour they feel like a life time, and when they pass I am tired and my day ahead is screwed up because it drains me.

Medication; Painkillers.. nothing works, only strong stuff which disables me, yes it kills pain but I can’t drive, I’m high as a kite.. I’d rather be in pain. Dr. keeps giving me nasal spray. this stuff doesn’t work.. he seems to think it will..

Part of the problem I have with the doctor is getting an appointment. When you work full time, you can’t just nip to the doctors, appointments are generally every two weeks as they don’t open weekends. its a pain the arse.

Doctor is really making me think It’s psychological… If this was psychological how would I wake myself up in pain? but why would I do this to myself? Why would I put myself through pain at work and screw my whole day up?!! I have lots of things to do with my day like spending it with my previous kids and playing piano, gaming… I don’t want this and I don’t have time for it!

One diagnosis was; tension headache…

I love life… I genuinely am in my prime, my children are beautiful and I love life, it has never been so good, yeah sure work can be stressful but it’s supposed to be.

without sounding arrogant.. I know myself well… I’ve had this body for nearly 40 years… I think I know what’s wrong with it, I really think its damaged sinuses.

Now my pain has gone… It just goes, poof… Sunglasses are off and I don’t know how I was typing on my phone it was so dark lol.

Now do I goto bed for an hour and disturb everyone or stay awake for work.

My left eye feels a bit tender, almost dry. I will make a cuppa tea and move onto the PC and charge my phone… typing on the iPhone is a challenge.

I read this back and sentences are not formed properly, I really want to edit what I’ve written before grammar Nazi’s see it… But I have to leave it as it’s part of the problem..

half hour later I’ve set tumblr up n my pc for ease of access so I can do this blog stuff when i’m at work or whatever.

So I’ve moved onto the PC, this is probably the most stupid idea I’ve had sitting in front of the PC with eye pain and fear of light, going to have a cigarette and think of how to improve this blog stuff.. maybe if I find the right words and describe it better; and if there is a god they will see it and think yeah he’s been punished enough now let him live.