Let the Laughing Begin

Yesterday I went on a long enough ride and the weather report turned out to be incorrect enough that I was close to heat prostration near the end.

I hit a stone in the road that was invisible and it gave me a flat. As I was trying to figure out how to make the particular CO2 filler in that seat pack to work I punctured the canister and lost one of my two CO2 tubes.

Opening the front tire to remove the inner tube and replace it with the new tube a black guy who looked nearly homeless came by and said that he had a patch kit if I needed it. I thanked him but without a pump I couldn't find any leaks to patch.

When the front tube came out it was a Performance butyl tube. They were available in a 30, a 40 and a 60 mm stem length. I have bought the latex tubes because they were available in 51 mm stems. The back (which was losing air about the same as the front) is latex.

So my tires not losing air plainly isn't because of the material of the tubes.

My suspicion is the pump meter. I bought a new Silca professional pump from Andrew and it has a new (and probably much better) pressure gauge on it. This allows me to fill the tire up properly and to test the pressure more accurately than most pumps.

So it probably is pump and not inner tube material related.

Now don't say I lacked the courage to publicly correct myself when I think I was wrong. How many of you can say the same thing - John and Frank?