Re: [CR] Tubular repair in 15 minutes? - No 5 minutes!

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References: <bcd.52aa9124.37b4591c@aol.com> <8CBE98E0991F55B-10D0-CD5@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
To: <dtshifter@aol.com>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:17:27 -0400
In-Reply-To: <8CBE98E0991F55B-10D0-CD5@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
From: <verktyg@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [CR] Tubular repair in 15 minutes? - No 5 minutes!


When I was a starving student back in the 70's I used to repair my own sewups. Usually on a cold winter night when I had school work to do.

I never got that many flats on sewups, even in bad goathead country.

One of the secrets was to use larger cross section tires at lower pressures than was commonplace. We ran about 85 PSI in the front and 90 in the rear. We also used "sticker flickers" - tire savers made of soft iron wire and very flexible surgical tubing. We had someone make them special for our shop.

I've seen a time when I ran over a bunch of goatheads on the road and watched them get flicked out of my tire before they punctured it on the 2nd revolution.

What I've been trying now is a 5 minute fix. I use Tufo Tire Sealant. It comes in 2 strengths, yellow label standard and orange label extreme. Juts unscrew the top of the presta valve if you have the removable style and pour about 1/3 of the bottle into your tire with the enclosed plastic tube. Put the valve back in, rotate the tire a few times and pump it up. The tube fits over the valve so if you have the kind that are not removable you can just loosen the valve.

I received an eBay bike over a year and a half ago that came from southern Colorado. The sewup tires were flat and at least 10 years old. One held air for a few minutes and the other wouldn't hold any at all. I picked at least a dozen goathead nubs out of the treads. As a first time experiment I put some Tufo yellow label Tire Sealant in both tires. I never ridden them but they're still holding air since I first pumped them up.

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

Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA

-----Original Message----- Sent: Wed, Aug 12, 2009 11:01 am Subject: Re: [CR] Tubular repair in 15 minutes? - Was: ... Re Re: $$$ for flatted tire

I'll go along with Mark on this one.? I have repaired several in the past 30+ years and even if I did them every day, I could never do a tire in 15 minutes!!? My goodness, there is quite a bit involved as Mark describes, and I think my best times were closer to an hour (from removing the tire to regluing it) which is a long time compared to a clincher tube repair!? I have had good results, but they did not come quickly.

Cheers,

Chuck Brooks Malta, NY NEUSA

-----Original Message----- From: FujiFish1@aol.com Sent: Wed, Aug 12, 2009 1:42 pm Subject: [CR] Tubular repair in 15 minutes? - Was: ... Re Re: $$$ for flatted tire

15 minutes??!!?? It took me hours the couple of times I tried, and the sewn up results were bulky and misshapen. Can you really can find a leak area, remove base tape, unstitch affected area, locate exact leak, clean and repair, properly re-stitch and re-apply base tape in fifteen minutes? I'll send ALL my tubulars to you for repair ... what is you rate per hour, please? :)

Ciao,
Mark Agree
Southfield MI USA
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