Bloody Punctures

I love my bike. I built it myself. It’s pretty reliable too.

Except for the rear tyre—which is driving me to distraction; Today I had my second puncture in less than a week. The vicious irony being that I fitted a brand new tyre after the last one as the old one though not worn out was looking more than a little pockmarked from its many gorings by London’s razor-sharp road debris.

Since I finished it not-quite-a-year-ago I’d estimate I've had something like 15 punctures. I exaggerate not. Only one of those was the front wheel. Can anyone tell me why that is? It may be that the front wheel saddles less of the overall weight—but surely it covers all the same road and should be about as equal?

My tyres are always at a good pressure, I do repairs properly—maaan I even have a puncture ‘resistant’ (HA!) diaphragm between the tube and tyre on the rear—but still they come—regularly and always to the rear. The difficult to get off wheel. Maybe I need to change my route. The sad truth is probably something to do with the amount of broken glass in London. When I make repairs nine times out of ten the culprit is a little shark-tooth shaped sliver of glass peeking defiantly through the rubber.

The logical conclusions surely is that I should get chunkier tyres but sadly bike-vanity prevents such a terrible solution. I am not a BMXer! My brother remembers how his first bike had solid tyres and he could ride through the glass—much to his friends’ delight—but I fear such wonderfully basic and practical bicycle equipment is no longer available.

I want inner-tubes that fail incrementally. If a tube was composed of say five independent (plaited?) tubes then if one failed you would only lose 20% of pressure and still have a functioning wheel. Kinda like the sealed hulls in a ship where if one fills up with water the whole lot doesn’t sink. Maybe I should patent it. Tricky part would be the valve. Hrm...

Tags:PuncturesPatents