How long does it take you to fix a flat?

Today it took me...30 minutes!!!

That seems like a long time to me. I wasn't hurrying...I was taking my time...but still, 30 minutes?!?!? Is this because I'm still a tire newbie? Do I lack basic skills? Why does it take so long?!?!?!

Walking to a picnic table in the shade added a few minutes. And of course, digging multiple goathead thorns out of my tire with my Leatherman was kind of time consuming. As was cleaning the blood off of everything because my finger was bleeding (not sure what I cut it on). And then there's the dreaded "am I ever going to get the last 4 inches of tire back on this bleeping wheel?!?!" and the ever-popular "I am never going to get enough pressure in this thing with this bleeping frame pump!"

Heavy sigh.

Did I mention I hate goathead thorns?

my record is 1:14. it was a flat changing contest. I got 2nd overall ad tops for he women. the winner was 7 seconds faster than me. I figure my little girl-hands should give me at least a 7 second handicap, right?

road-side, a rear flat takes me about 3 minutes.

the more you practice, the faster you will be!

If I am in my basement with all my tools, putting in a new tube (not patching), know the cause of the flat, and use the floor pump, less than 10 minutes.

The following add time:
- Unknown cause: I've had shards of glass hidden in the layers of rubber of the tire, and mysterious flats that were only explained by putting the inflated tube in a bit sink full of water to see where it was losing air;

- Patching the tube

- Inflating with a mini-pump (CO2 is faster though, as long as it works).

- It's on the road side and it's raining and/or cold

- It's on my commuting bike (I don't have a quick release on the back wheel)

- It's on my commuting bike (the rear brakes are harder to undo because they're under the rack and it's awkward to reach them)

- The tube is hard to pull out of the tire (also more of a problem with my commuting bike).

So: it can add up to 30 minutes easily if there are lots of issues. But I try to keep it around 10 max.

Road bike..takes me about 15min..I'm madame slow & hate the last bitty section..urgh.

Mtn bike-shorter amount of time..ahhh..so much easier.

"My" LBS mechanic - can do it in just over SIX SECONDS!!! That is nuts!

What Grog said (minus the part about no quick release on the back wheel).

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Originally Posted by shellkay1212

"My" LBS mechanic - can do it in just over SIX SECONDS!!! That is nuts!

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...I'm guessing that he's not checking the inside for leftover glass or any of THAT slow stuff. :)

-- gnat! (I'd rather put in the extra time to make sure I don't get another flat 30 seconds later, personally...)

I'm sure he doesn't do that all the time. He entered a contest and won...

I don't get flats - knock on wood. I use slime tubes, because I hate getting flats on the road.

I've never timed myself. I'd guess around 10 minutes because I like to make sure it's right.

Veronica

5 minutes on the side of the road. 15 at home with the radio and my tools. :p

When I changed my flat tire during the Waves to Wine ride, I was so slow that:

• You could have timed me using a sundial
• I had no less than 5 meaningful conversations with some of the locals
• The census bureau was going to add me as a resident of the town

I got off to a good start -- removed the wheel from the frame, got the tire off the wheel, found the source of the flat.

I lost a little time by not slightly inflating the new tube before mounting it.

The real time sink was that the tire didn't look like it was seated properly. I tried re-doing it a couple of times, but it just didn't look right. Perfectionism is a horrible thing! I finally decided that I wanted to finish the ride before sundown, so I did one more try at seating tube & tire, inflated the tire, put it back on, cleaned up my mess, and I was on my way.

Sometimes I think it'd be helpful if tubes were different colors than your tires. That way it'd be really, really simple to make sure that your tube wasn't stuck between the tire & the rim. But maybe that's just me. :rolleyes:

So I think what you're all trying to tell me is that I'm really slow? :rolleyes:

melissam...you and I sound like kindred spirits in the tire department. But at least we can do it, right? :o

I timed myself yesterday putting new tubes into my Rambouillet - about 5 minutes.

Don't ask me how long it took to put the fenders back on....


Veronica

It depends on how new my tires are. New race tires take FOREVER to get back on the rims, and I usually wind up cutting my hand on the bladed spokes and/or smashing a finger in the process.

Okay, embarrassing story. Last time I changed a flat was on a local multi-user trail, but way out in the boonies where there wasn't much traffic.

My multi-tool has tire levers built in and this was the first time I'd tried to use them. It was a MAJOR PITA trying to manipulate the levers with the rest of the tool attached. After that experience I put some regular tire levers back in my seat pack, too bad about the extra space and weight.

Once I got the tire off, I totally could not find what caused the flat. It happened when I hit a bump so I thought it was a pinch flat, except the hole in the tube was extremely tiny. (When I got home and patched the tube later that day, only a slow stream of the tiniest bubbles came out of the hole when submerged in water. I'm actually surprised it went flat quickly, but I guess a high-pressure tube just doesn't get slow leaks.) So anyway I went over the tire two or three times trying to find what caused the puncture and never did.

Then I tried to use my CO2 inflater for the first time and totally could not get it to work. I still don't know why. DH and I actually burned a cartridge to find out what the problem was, and he could get CO2 out of it, but only a very, very weak stream, and it took pliers to get the cartridge off the inflater head.

So luckily I had the mini-pump I'd just bought. Very glad to have it, but it wasn't exactly a quick job.

I got the tire to where it was starting to get hard and saw that the bead wasn't properly seated. So I had to let out most of the air, squish the tire all around the rim, and pump it all over again.

Interspersed with all of this was swatting mosquitoes, since of course it was seemingly a freakin' swamp.

Some guy on a tri bike came by and asked if I needed help. I told him I was okay. After he'd gotten to the end of the trail and came back on his return trip (like, 14 miles) he asked me again. Same flat??? he asked incredulously :o Thank goodness he was at least on a tri bike and appeared to know what to do with it, not some out-of-shape person on a 40 lb hybrid :rolleyes:

I had to look this up in my training log to see just how much time I'd taken. It was almost 45 minutes. Slowest. Tire. Change. Evah. And I'm an experienced rider who's changed many, many flats in my life (without exaggeration, back in the day I patched the holes by the side of the road, MUCH quicker that). Just never with a non-functioning CO2 inflater, stupidly designed tire levers or a weetie little mini-pump...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shellkay1212

"My" LBS mechanic - can do it in just over SIX SECONDS!!! That is nuts!

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It is obvious that this contest was not set up for a real world environment and had to have had a special staging. For instance, think about the time for pulling the wheel off the frame, locating the source of the flat, pulling a new tube from your pocket or bag, and re-inflation - none of which can be eliminated in a real world application.

The Tour of Missouri on Versus showed a rear wheel change for Mark Cavendish as Phil commented that it should take only 9 seconds to swap wheels from the support car.

So, I say, "so what?" to his 6 seconds and it sounds like hyperbole. You sure it wasn't 60 secs or more? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by RolliePollie

melissam...you and I sound like kindred spirits in the tire department. But at least we can do it, right? :o

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Yeah, we should ride together some time! If one of us gets a flat, we can transform the experience into a lovely picnic lunch. :)

Practice makes perfect. The good news is that I hadn't had much practice in the flat changing the department because I hadn't had any flats. (Oh great, I've just cursed myself to having lots of practice. I'd better pack some extra tubes for tomorrow's 200k...)

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Originally Posted by melissam

I'd better pack some extra tubes for tomorrow's 200k...)

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You're gonna need that big bag you've been resisting. Don't forget the rain gear too.

Veronica

It depends on how long it takes me to wonder what I'm gonna do.

I mean, honestly. Five miles from the house? Should I call home? Should I change it? Should I walk?

I'm laaaazy.

But once, when I was vrry far from home and no one was home anyway, it didn't take long at all. No one was watching. Maybe 10-15 minutes.

I think proximity to my very skilled husband makes me like one of those stupid women we all love to hate. I mean, I'm not a total airhead but I dunno... and it's not like he encourages this, either. I just get inept or something, when he's around. I wonder if that is like, somethng left over from the caveman days?

Five miles??? Walk your bike in cycling shoes???

Nope. I wouldn't have to think about that one for half a second :p

I remembered the flat I just described wasn't my last one after all, it was just the last one I fixed on the road. The last one was a quarter mile or less from my car, and that distance I did walk.

I bought a wilderness whistle for emergencies. My husband calls it the "come change my flat whistle." Honestly, I begged him to teach me, but he's too impatient.

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Originally Posted by cunninghamair

Honestly, I begged him to teach me, but he's too impatient.

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Teach yourself then!

It will be an hour well invested. There is an excellent video on youtube.

I'm so slow I would never even want to time it.

Even slower if I'm still shaking from the BLAM! of an exploding tube, and the surprise that I actually stopped and unclipped without crashing or falling over in the street.

My husband can fix a flat in a few minutes. Me? Well, it depends on the front or back, first of all. I did my front tire in about 5 to 7 minutes in my garage with my regular tire pump. The back tire takes a bit longer and I've done it out on the road more than once, but had a friend to help. I also had a C02 cartridge, which puts air in lickidy split quick. I'd say 10 minutes to do the back wheel out on the road, assuming there are no strange circumstances that make it take longer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RolliePollie

Today it took me...30 minutes!!!

That seems like a long time to me. I wasn't hurrying...I was taking my time...but still, 30 minutes?!?!? Is this because I'm still a tire newbie? Do I lack basic skills? Why does it take so long?!?!?!

Walking to a picnic table in the shade added a few minutes. And of course, digging multiple goathead thorns out of my tire with my Leatherman was kind of time consuming. As was cleaning the blood off of everything because my finger was bleeding (not sure what I cut it on). And then there's the dreaded "am I ever going to get the last 4 inches of tire back on this bleeping wheel?!?!" and the ever-popular "I am never going to get enough pressure in this thing with this bleeping frame pump!"

Heavy sigh.


Did I mention I hate goathead thorns?

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Well, first of all. YOU are changing YOUR OWN tires. Which, let's face it, until I started riding, I had no idea what was involved. My husband did the first while I watched, I did the second while he watched, and I did the third by myself and it took me 30 minutes in my driveway. (Luckily all were slow deflates, so I could do it at home.)
The guy at my LBS is so fast, I called him the "flat wrangler". He almost fell over and said, "man, I"m gonna use that one!"
I signed up for a bike maintenance course, and I"m hoping to improve. Until then, just changing my own is good enough for me! Seriously.

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Originally Posted by IGGY

Well, first of all. YOU are changing YOUR OWN tires. Which, let's face it, until I started riding, I had no idea what was involved. My husband did the first while I watched, I did the second while he watched, and I did the third by myself and it took me 30 minutes in my driveway. (Luckily all were slow deflates, so I could do it at home.)
The guy at my LBS is so fast, I called him the "flat wrangler". He almost fell over and said, "man, I"m gonna use that one!"
I signed up for a bike maintenance course, and I"m hoping to improve. Until then, just changing my own is good enough for me! Seriously.

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Thanks Iggy...this makes me feel better. I am proud of myself for being able to fix a flat on the road by myself. It's not like the process is hard...the concept is pretty basic...but I have teeny tiny weak little hands and it's just SO HARD to get the tire off, back on, pumped up, etc.

I bet if I really hurried and tried really hard, I could do it in 10-15 minutes. But I don't want to get a flat just so I can try to get faster.

I can do one in about 20 mins, assuming I don't have any major problems with it. I really hate, though, when I get one on my back tire vs. my front. It's a mental thing for me, I know, just because I know I have to mess with my chain/derailer, etc. And, of course, every 2 out of 3 flats seem to be on my back. :mad: