Fix A Flat

This diary entry is for me. A milestone in my many years of riding. I finally got a flat and fixed it at home using one of those plug kits that I've heard so much about and that I carry on my Vespas. The only requirement is that the tire not have an inner tube, as my late lamented Bonneville did, the motorcycle that got wrecked by Hurricane Irma.

I checked the tire pressure on both Vespas Wednesday and they were fine. Yesterday afternoon I moved the bikes to wash them. I spray them with S100 and rinse it off and they get a very satisfying shiny look with no elbow grease at all.  Except this time I felt the back end of the orange Vespa wobbling all over the place. I knew what that meant and sure enough I found a piece of metal in the tire. When I pulled it out I could hear air hissing, the last of the forty one pounds pressure leaking away...

So here I was finally face to face with that idea that I could"fix a flat" by the side of the road if necessary.  I pulled the kit out from under the seat and faced my demons. The instructions were brilliantly clear with little color photos to explain each step and a complete bag of tools to do the job. How hard could this be? Yet I still had the niggling feeling at the back of my mind that somehow I would fail, like stopping a  dripping faucet, a job I can never quite accomplish. 

It's a pretty slick package sold for about fifty bucks as I recall by the ever helpful Aerostich company out of Minnesota, the giant motorcycle gear shipping store. They test the products they sell and this one was brilliant because it seems to work.

Rusty was keeping guard for me. Or something. He likes sitting in the driveway watching the world go by.

The plug gets inserted after you ream out the hole and to get it in you use these screwed together tools. It's actually very slick and relatively easy. The Allen tool twists the inner core which pushes the rubber mushroom into the hole through the insertion tool pressed into the tire's surface (below). The mushroom expands inside the tire and presses back against the inner surface sealing the hole. It took me two goes to get it right but there are lots of little mushrooms in the bag. They say you should only use mushroom plugs that have lubrication on them. So the first failed attempt I threw away.

Once the plug is screwed into the hole you retrieve the insertion plug and leave the rubber stem sticking out of what was the hole.

 And there is the stem sticking out of the hole on my second attempt. If I were roadside I'd then use a couple of CO2 cartridges that also come with the kit to re-inflate the tire.  As it was I was at home so I used my handy dandy (Aerostich) pump to get the tire to full pressure. I used the supplied blade to cut the stem off AFTER inflation and that was that.

 A quick test ride up Highway One with a check for leaks using the sputum on the finger method and all seemed well. The little soft rubber mushroom plug looks like this. Terribly phallic I know but it actually seems to work. Amazing.

Whether or not you can treat a plug as a permanent repair is a subject for debate and you can figure out how that goes. From my perspective the hole was small and in the right place (not the wall of the tire) and I have only a thousand or maybe  a little more miles left on the rear tire so if the plug holds, (and why won't it?) I shall ride on it. The good thing about tubeless tires is they usually leak slowly when they get a puncture. I am still quite amazed this half hour operation worked as well as it did. And now I know what I'm doing it is quite the confidence booster.

Ride To Work

I am not one of those people who gives much thought to social events built into calendars. I am indifferent to National 911 Dispatcher Week, or Mother's Day, or Breast Cancer Awareness. Is there anyone not aware of breast cancer? In a country with no health insurance coverage worth a damn we need Co-Pay Awareness Month (how much is 20% of any cripplingly expensive "proceedure"?) or National No Coverage Week for the 60 million Americans with no health care plan outside a Hope and a Prayer. With that sort of attitude you might think I am not likely to give much credence to Ride To Work Day. Alongside Andy Goldfine, the founder of this awareness campaign I believe everyone should ride to work, to save resources, support national energy independence, conservation, reduce traffic jams and chaos and make people at large happier (even me). Goldfine is the owner of Aerostich the motorcycle gear company and thus he has a vested interest in getting people to ride. But that is not really the point. Aerostich makes gear in Minnesota with local people getting paid real money to do real work so if anything we should praise him even more for trying to get people to ride and buy his stuff, if that were the point, but I don't think it is. I am a fan of Aerostich gear, it is of good quality and works as advertised. That Goldfine has a sense of humor and enjoys his passion is a bonus. That he wants to share it with the world at large is evidence of his joi de vivre.

 

To that end Goldfine has written this piece about why people should ride as a social good. I've cut it short but you can find it online Ride To Work 2013 , under the Resources For Advocates or in the Aerostich catalogue which in itself makes for fun reading, really, you would be surprised! Aerostich.

 

Andy Goldfine:

 

Part 1: The Missing Piece

 

Two pieces, actually…First, riding is a social good. Same as eating healthy, exercising and higher education. Everything we do that makes us stronger, clearer, smarter, and sharper means we can better help ourselves and our species.We become better husbands, wives, parents, and workers…better leaders and followers.

 

Riding motorcycles does all of this,…and it gets us from A to B with a smaller ‘footprint’, and saves us time, and reduces congestion and increasesavailable parking. Win, win, win. Win. So why isn’t everyone riding?

 

Because it is harder. Sitting on a comfortable couch eating junk food, watching TV, smoking cigarettes, drinking, and uh,…it’s all bad. As are cars, pizza and ice cream. But that stuff all feels soooo good…and I like every bit of it, too. The people selling us our cars, pizza and ice cream are not going to tell us those things are bad for us. And I’m keeping my car, pizza and ice cream. I’m already eating about as healthy, exercising as much, and riding as often as I can.

 

What’s missing?

 

Incentives! I want to be rewarded for doing the right thing. Because, (ahem…) this is America! Everyone here deserves this. There are only two meaningful incentives. (I already can easily ride in almost any weather to almost any destination—comfortably, efficiently and cost-effectively. Not enough.)

 

1. I also want to be able to save time filtering between all of the cars, just like riders in

California (…and the entire rest of the world). It’s statistically well-proven to be far safer for everyone, and it’s super-easy once you’ve done it a few times.

 

2. I’d also like some legal protection in case something goes wrong. Like a ‘vulnerable road user’ law for all us walkers, bicyclers, skaters, skateboarders and motorcyclers. For everyone who uses roads not surrounded by glass, metal and airbags. We all need the same level of legal protection highway workers in states like Michigan enjoy. “Kill a worker: $10,000 fine + a year in jail” roadside construction zone sign there read. We want that level of protection, too.

 

Those are the two missing pieces: Lane sharing (‘splitting’ or ‘filtering’) tolerance and Vulnerable Road User protection law.

 

It’s that simple…

 

Part 2: How do we get there?

 

Begin with “all politics is local”. There’s no reason any municipality cannot enact a law

to allow lane sharing and separately another to better protect vulnerable road users. Yes, such laws would be extremely tough to pass (of course!), and anything like that is certain to be court-challenged at state and federal levels. But this is where the pressures for reform and social change must begin.

It could happen.

—Andy Goldfine 2013

That's my favorite line from the Aerostich library of catchphrases, "Every day. No Excuses. Have fun." Of course in my neck of the woods it seems easy to ride every day. Of 13 dispatchers on staff (officers get to take their patrol cars home) only three of us ride to work, and the other two ride scooters less than a mile each. I ride in the rain and my colleagues, who already think I'm crazy to live 25 miles out of town, think I'm stupid for not using my air conditioned car. I've given up explaining the pleasure I get from riding and the self knowledge I get from riding in the cold, in high winds or in rain heavy or light. Its not much of a challenge to drive a modern car in rain even though judging by other dirvers tentativeness you'd think so because mere puddles cause tremendous traffic jams as though they were lakes. As to whether I will ride tomorrow, it depends if I'm on duty! Actually I'm off, but I look forward to my commute by Bonneville...every other day.

 

 

So I live in a relatively comfortable climate for commuting, even though there is but one road and it is flat and mostly straight...According to Aerostich if you have the proper gear you can ride more often than you think. Check it out:

 

 

The thing is, for me I just like to ride and I actually enjoy a commute on two wheels where driving a car is simply tedious. Its not all about speed, though that helps when traffic is moving slowly as it usually seems to these days on the Overseas Highway, its also about being out and doing something necessary (like getting to work!) but feeling alive while doing it. That a motorcycle or scooter does that is a rare feat in a world deadened where most sensations are deadened for us by second hand contact, usally through a window or across an electronic bridge. Our neighbors spend more time watching sports and less time doing sports.

 

As absurd as it may seem I see myself as above when I'm out riding (and it's just as unlikely on the Bonneville as the Vespa, I might add) but the sentiment is real. Cars are useful but they deaden sensation. I'm 55 and I am looking at the short end of my life so sensation is more important than ever. I don't buy gadgets much, least of all for my bike but I do try to make it more useful and comfortable to ride. I am not much interested in changing machines or "upgrading" as added complexity leads to more repairs and less riding. I just like to ride, and I like what I have.

 

And that is what tomorrow is about. Tomorrow and everyday thereafter: Go riding! No excuses!! Have fun!!!

Posted with Blogsy