Posts Tagged ‘tire repair’

A sidewall failure of my Sweetskins MTB tire today reminded me of a temporary fix I once read about and actually used once. When you tear the casing of a tire, you can be seriously disabled. You’ve probably blown your tube and replacing the tube won’t fix the tear. A temporary solution you can use is to place some sort of paper currency, preferably a small value bill, between the tube and the location of the tear in the tire. You can then pump up the tire and the bill will keep the tube from protruding from the tire hopefully long enough for you to arrive at your final destination. If you’re like most people, you probably carry a cell phone and can call the wifey or a beer-drinking buddy to come and get you, but why involve an undesirable vehicle when you don’t have to. Besides, it would be more fun to impress your buddies with your ingenuity and adventurousness by fixing the tire with the dollar trick (hopefully with your buddy’s dollar).

I admit I did not use this trick today. Conditions were very wet and cold and getting another flat on affected tire was not unlikely. When I got the flat, I was only about a half mile from work so I cyclocrossed it the rest of the way. It’s good to know that I can still run that far. Then, I caught a ride home with a buddy who lives a few blocks away. I missed an opportunity to re-confirm my dollar trick. Even I am prone to weakness sometimes.