Last night, cleaning my chain, I was surprised to find that the front tire had gone flat. It must have been an awfully slow leak, because I hadn't been been aware of any problem when I rode into town the day before. I removed the tire and tube, and was going to patch it but then decided to walk it down to the local bicycle shop the next day.
So this morning I went to the bike shop, and was glad I did. As soon as I mentioned that I had a puncture, Brad (and with a name like that he should be an expert on punctures!) told me that it had probably been caused by a thorn of the puncture vine. He produced a little vial filled with these vile thorns: each had a hard, needle-thin spike about 1/2 inch long, and were shaped in such a way that the spike was normally poking upward. Brad said that there were a lot of these between Lewiston and Lola Pass (shortly before Missoula, Montana). I decided to be prudent, and had him put a tire liner, and relatively thick tubes, on each wheel.
- photo on Wikipedia
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1 comment:
I would have liked seeing this next to your hand to get a sense of perspective, but that's not possible on Wikkopedia!
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