Just had a really weird puncture. Came home and found Uni tyre flat, 5 hours after I parked it on my return from a sub 3-mile ride, mainly on tarmac/gravel.
Puncture (tiny hole) was on the inside of the tube, next to the valve, over the top of a spoke nipple that was pretty well covered with the rim tape. Fixed it and then added two layers of electrical tape over the nipples adjacent to the valve - just in case.
Uni is the 29" Trainer with standard tyre and tube (only had it a week).
Seems okay at the moment, just don’t understand why it holed in the first place. I’ve never seen a puncture like this in years of bike riding, unless thew rim tape was shot-to-hell/missing, which it isn’t.
Anyone else seen one of these punctures and have a clue what might have happened?
I’ve had a mysterious flat like that. It translated into a 3 mile walk back to the car. It could have been worse though, it was at the tail end of a distance ride.
My flat wasn’t near the valve but it was just the one hole on the rim side of the tube. I was riding a KH drilled rim and the hole was was between two of the drilled holes. It didn’t align with a spoke and this is a double walled rim anyway. No hops or anything else to precipitate a flat, just riding along a flat rails-to-trails surface and… something.
I really have no Idea how it happened. I checked the rim, everything. Nada.
I just logged into this forum to post a similar question, rather than start a new thread, I hope no one minds if I post it here instead.
On Saturday - the day before yesterday - I went for a 7.6 mile ride with a fair bit of gravel road along the course. Yesterday I went to hop on my Nimbus II, and noticed the tire was incredibly low, not flat, but just really low. Pumped it up to about 45 PSI. Today when I hopped on it, the tire wasn’t as low as it was Sunday, but it seemed to me that it was slightly flatter than what I pumped it up to. I can find no hole either in the tread or the sidewall. My question, was what, aside from a puncture, could cause a leakage like that? And should I take off the tire and examine the tube?
The only issues I’ve ever had with my unicycle tire/tube with respect to flats has been from weakening of the valve to tube connection over time. Since we tend to adjust air pressure quite a lot that valve gets a log of work, flexing back and forth, and if you’re not careful the seal around the valve can develop small cracks and breaks. I was having a similar slow leak in a tube once and the culprit ended up being just what I described. At the time all I did was put some green slime in the tube and that was enough to seal that small leak up. Worked like a charm. Eventually though the valve seams failed and I had a spectacular blowout! But that was a long time later. Consider putting a bit of slime in your tube; will help prevent a lot of thorn in the tire, slow leak type issues…
I had this happen to some of my bikes. What I found had happend was that the core inside of the valve stem had slightly unscrewed. Theres a special wrench that can take out/tighten the cores, and once I tightened it I didn’t loose any air.
I have occasionally had punctures in the position described: on the inside of the tube, facing the rim. The rim tape has been intact, and no spoke ends or swarf have been present. I have checked the inside of the tyre for loose sharp objects and found nothing.
I now believe that these punctures are caused by evil spirits.
but for real, was a hold or just deflated?