Can you change a rear flat?

[hirakukibou]

I think it is important to remember that there are many different "learning styles" (or intelligences if you are into Gardner's work). Although I teach flat changing with the bicycle right side up, I can see that it might help some folks to turn it over.

Some of it for me is "how I learned" as well as for me it is easier to see where the wheel goes into the drop outs when the bike is upright.

I also think it is important to teach using as many learning modes as possible -- I demonstrate, narrate, guide my students to change their own tire, and I have a handout. Some folks find it easy, others find it challenging, but they all learn with instruction and encouragement (the encouragement part of the show is as important as the instruction!).

Anyway, just another perspective.

[buffybike]

I've ONLY had rear flats. Once I had rear flats twice on the same ride (turns out there was a piece of metal in my tire). I learned by asking a girl at my LBS to show me how to change it when I first bought my bike. Then I flatted on a group ride and I made one of the leaders walk me through changing it. The next time I flatted, I was alone on the side of the highway and it was sprinkling. It took me about 15 minutes, but I changed it myself. I felt like such a bad*ss afterward.

[OakLeaf]

I am still not sure that someone who does all of this stuff intuitively can understand how my brain works. I don't mean this directed at you, personally, I just think it's hard to envision. The same way I can't understand how someone doesn't like to read.

You know, I really can't envision it, but as someone at the opposite end of the bell curve, I find it very easy to accept. If I can take one look at a wheel and frame and swingarm and instantly understand exactly through which opening and at what angle the new shock has to go in, why shouldn't there be people on the opposite end of that aptitude scale, too?

[owlice]

I can change a tire on a bike or a car. I don't patch my flatted tubes; I just replace them.

I probably knew how to do this as a kid on my no-speed cheap bicycle ($20 used), and I clearly recall soaking the chain in gasoline (or maybe kerosene) to clean it (and being just a little worried that something would ignite the fuel), but other than that, I didn't mess with a bike again until a couple of years ago.

I went to an REI bike maintenance talk -- no hands-on, just talk -- two years ago which was helpful, but what was at least as helpful was having a guy talk/walk me through changing my tire on one of my long C&O rides (prepping for doing the whole towpath). I enjoyed talking to the guy; he, his three kids, his wife, and his parents were spending the weekend on a 50-mile ride on the C&O, camping over the long weekend along the way. And he was a good teacher, too.

I've have more flats in the past four months than in the previous 8 years of riding. Should have paid attention to the size of the new tires and not been using tubes that were just a little big for them!

I carry gloves and wipes with me.

[tzvia]

Thankfully, on the MTBs I run tubeless so my flats have been ZERO in the last year off-road. Which is really good, as my Safire is a bit of a pain to reinstall the rear tire. The rear pivot point on the chainstay is kinda thick and right next to the cogs and it makes it rather difficult to get the wheel back on. Chain is not an issue.

On the road bike it's a no brainer; I've been fixing flats since I was a kid. I use USE Spin Stix so I just unscrew the skewer and the wheel pops right off. I only use those patch kits with the vulcanizing rubber and sandpaper- none of that crap peel and stick stuff, so the patched tube is good as new and I won't be dealing with dried glue and leaking patches down the road.

[pll]

Practice makes perfection (or, at least, it lowers the discomfort).

I attended a demo in my LBS years ago and I had been lucky never to have a flat on my own bike. First chance to practice, with some help, was on a friends hybrid.

Then in 2008, I had 3 flats in the rear tire in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. Not only did I learn to patch and change tubes, but I also learned about bad rim tape! Before those flats, I did not even know that existed. After the third one, I had to 'patch' parts of the rim tape with sport tape a friend was carrying, riding very gingerly for hours until we arrived to our destination and found a bike shop.

Last summer I had another chance to practice when I saw a family stranded in a trail -- dad's rear tire had a gaping hole! I recalled having read (in TE) something about using a folded dollar bill to cover the hole. It works!

[Geonz]

You know, I really can't envision it, but as someone at the opposite end of the bell curve, I find it very easy to accept. If I can take one look at a wheel and frame and swingarm and instantly understand exactly through which opening and at what angle the new shock has to go in, why shouldn't there be people on the opposite end of that aptitude scale, too?

Thank you

I also struggle with remembering how things are arranged, tho' perhaps not as far along the spectrum as Crankin. I *still* get the sequence out of whack changing tires -- and since I ride 8-10,000 miles a year, I do it fairly often -- if I don't read the box the tube comes in. (I only know that because it happened yesterday.) With this particular tire, I had first tried to put the new, nice 35mm tyre on and ... when it just wouldn't cooperate and seemed to &*( big, I put it away and grabbed an old tire ... but it was really, really old and so went flat the next day. Happily, it happened *not* out on the 20 mile club ride, but just got soft on the errand to the farmer's market a mile from home... which inspired me to load up that big new tire and the other hopefully not quite as old tire onto the back of the bike and then pump up that tire and figure it would get me the mile to the bike coop where I volunteer just so I can keep seeing how things work and know a ***little*** more... and I'll do triage and answer questions, so the people who like wrenching can spend more time doing that.
Oops, it *didn't* get me there... so I hopped off to walk it... but the ancient spineless tire even came free from the rim and the tube wrapped itself around things... so I had to toss it upside down in the road and jam it back in and then take all the parts to my bike blender out, since it was the weight that caused the problem, and limp it the rest of the way in.
Once in, with a little coaching, the "big fat" tyre wasn't too big. But I still put the tube in the tire before getting the tire halfway on the rim, which mattered.


... and this one **is** a lot easier to change upside down, because then all its skirts flop down so I can see things. If your bike doesn't have skirts, though, it doesn't matter as much.

[abejita]

Ha, the one time I had a flat on my car while by myself I couldn't get the lugnuts to budge and decided that a stretch of divided highway with cars whizzing by at 75+mph was no place to dicker-around with a flat tire on the traffic side of the car (especially as I had my kid with me...seeing mom get pasted by a semi didn't seem like the best memory for him to have). I wasn't far from home and called my hubby...even his 250# self struggled to get them off. That's what cell phones are for, IMO.
.

When I got my first car, my dad gave me a cheater bar (I pipe really, you slip it over the end of the wrench that comes with the car) With the extra foot and a half of leverage, I can always get the lug nuts off. I've had one in every car since (and hubby's car too)

[nscrbug]

So...guess what all this talk about changing a rear flat got me??? A rear flat on my ride this morning. But since I was with my riding partner, I only "assisted" in the tire change...he did most of it. Mainly because we were trying to be at a certain destination point by a certain time. It still took the two of us, at least 15 minutes. I always worry about flatting again at some point in the ride...and this time, I had good reason to since we were about 35 miles from home. But I always carry 2 tubes, and 2 C02 cartridges...plus he had an extra tube and 2 cartridges so I think we were in pretty good shape. Despite my flat, we continued on to complete our first 100-miler of the season...which is always a major accomplishment for me. I'm sore and achey, but I'm proud of myself.

Linda