Its been a while. Between some travel and allergies/sickness there's not too terribly much to report until this week.
Another flat, and a tough one at that. Right around Dupont Circle on my evening commute the back tire started feeling "slushy". Looked down and low and behold I was getting a flat. Wasn't sure if it had been going down slowly or if I had just hit something so I broke out the CO2 pump and refilled.
Yup, it was a hole alright. Close to the stem at at the rim of the bike.
One of the nice things about where I got the flat is there is a bike shop not too far away, The Bike Rack on Q Street. So off I went, pushing the Prox the 5 or 6 blocks to the store.
Have the say the folks were very nice, and 30 minutes and $25 later I was back on the street. Unfortunately the patch lasted all of about 3 blocks. I managed to push it back to the store just before they closed and they took another crack at it (and were very apologetic). 10 minutes later I'm back on the street. 6 blocks later another flat. Unfortunately the place was closed for the evening so I pushed the last 9 blocks home.
Essentially the issue was that the hole in the inner-tube was likely too close to the stem, and the hole in the tire next to the rim was causing too much pressure on the inner-tube. Had I been able to get back to the shop I would have ordered a new tire/tube. Can't blame the Bike Rack, they did good work for what was asked, and tried to fix it a second time (and I would have gone back for the new tire had it not closed).
So, back home ordered a new inner-tube and tire off of Amazon. Would fix it myself except they won't arrive for a few days and Friday is "Bike to Work" day, which I wan't to take part in.
The Wee Lass has jury duty today so I'm working from home. During lunch I ended up taking the bike to BicycleSPACE in Chinatown (simply because its the closest shop to the house). Just got the call that its finished and I'll be picking it up later.
