How long does it take you to fix a flat?

[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?

[velogirl]

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!

[Grog]

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.

[crazycanuck]

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.

[shellkay1212]

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

[7rider]

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

[gnat23]

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

...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...)

[shellkay1212]

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

[Veronica]

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

[sundial]

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

[melissam]

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.

[RolliePollie]

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

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

[Veronica]

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

[aicabsolut]

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.

[OakLeaf]

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 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

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...