Wednesday, March 18, 2009

First downed soldier

The first victim of the Chicago winter has hit. Earlier this week I noticed that my front tire was not holding pressure. A slow leak was my immediate thought, which was sad because the tires are Scwalbe Marathon Plus. These things are bullet proof. I've run them now for around seven months without a puncture. I've even pulled a staple out of them, it couldn't make it to the tube.

So I pull off the tire and look for a puncture, nothing. At this point I decide to do the water test. I notice that my Presta adapter won't come off the tube. The purpose of the adapter is to allow the smaller Presta valves to fit into a whole drilled out to the size of a Schraeder (the type on a car tire). The adapter is corroded. Sure enough, I stick the tube under the water and air bubles start coming from the valve.

I origionally got the Presa tubes because I was running my tire closer to 100, which is the limit on Schraeder valves. Honestly, they also looked cooler. I don't care these days though, and my current tires max out at 70Psi so I pulled out a Schraeder tube and used it. All is well now.

No comments:

Post a Comment