Star thistle tire trashers, lurking potholes, traffic control

Now, as many riders may know, is thistle alert season, a time when you’re a lot more vulnerable to flats. And by golly, I just had my first thistle- induced flat of the year!

After the first leg of a long ride I took recently in the Sierra Nevada foothills, my ride buddy Marc and I stopped to have a snack in a pine-forested area. While we ate and shot the bull, Marc looked at my bike’s rear tire and saw it was flat. I was surprised because it wasn’t flat when I’d just pulled into the stop and leaned the bike against a chain link school fence.

No big deal, I turned the bike upside down and unhitched the back tire. I ran my thumb along the road contact side of the tire, and Aha! A razor sharp yellow star-thistle was sticking out and had lodged through the Kevlar tire to puncture the inner tube. 

Kevlar tires are very good resistors of sharp road debris that can cause a flat. But I’ve found, as have many other bike riders, that yellow star thistles, AKA yellow cockspur, AKA St. Barnaby’s thistle, especially in the autumn months when they’ve dried out and are hardened into very sharp needles, will drive right through even a Kevlar tire.

Last year, laying down my bike unknowingly into a thistle infested area, one pierced the side of my front Kevlar tire. I watched haplessly as I heard the air hiss out of the tire. I was dumbfounded! 

This time, the extra tough, road contact part of the tire got pierced. The weird thing was I never saw any thistle plant anywhere in the area, so if I could have avoided the thorn, I would have done all I could to steer clear of it, no problem!

BTW, when changing a flat, the best way is to use a pair of plastic tire levers you can keep in your under seat bag to pull only one side of the tire away from the wheel. Remember, just one side. If you pull both sides out, it’ll take a lot longer to get it back on the wheel. Anyway, that will give you the room to pull out the punctured tube. Then, if you haven’t found and removed the offending thistle or piece of glass, or metal, or whatever caused the flat, slowly run your thumb on the inside and outside of the tire to do so. Sometimes, whatever caused the flat doesn’t stick to the tire. So if all sides are completely smooth after the thumb inspection, you can put in a new tube. To help you seat the new tube in the wheel, inflate it with just a little air with a hand pump you should have with you (More on this below). Once you pop the one side of the tire back into the rim, pinch both sides all the way around to make sure the tube hasn’t worked its way between the edge of the tire and the rim. If it’s all smooth and even, it’s ready for air.

A lot of riders carry only one extra tire tube, but after a lot of mountain  and road biking I've concluded it's smart to pack two. Why? I’ve pulled out a replacement tube only to find that it has a leak. And one time, both of my replacement tubes leaked! I had to walk along the trail with bike on shoulder, until a couple riders stopped and gave me a spare inner tube. Good hearted riders that got me on my way, pronto!

So from that little incident, I learned a couple things: Always test your spare tubes for airworthiness before you pack them. Some of them leak even though they’re new.

And if while on a ride you see someone has flatted, ask if they need any help. A lot of times they don’t because most riders are prepared. But sometimes, their backup tubes fail, or something else doesn’t work and they need help. So just for the well being of our great cyclist family, it’s a rewarding gesture to stop and help out. Plus you can possible meet a new cycling buddy for future rides.

I had a small equipment failure on this last flat when I tried to fill my tire with an air cartridge. The valve I had to open the cartridge’s air into the new tube, uh, wouldn’t open the cartridge! Luckily, Marc had a much better valve unit packed in his tool bag and we were able to use that to open the cartridge and fill the tire.

So that’s on my list now: get a quality air valve so next time, if I’m flatted by myself somewhere, I’ll have the working equipment to quickly fill the tire.

And because it’s always good to have a back-up, just like the two extra tubes policy, I have a small tire pump attached to my bike frame. In case the air cartridges don’t work for some reason, I can still manually pump enough air in the tire to limp back. 

And I've found it’s worth it to buy a pump that can actually help you pump a tire to a fairly high pressure by hand. Many small pumps can’t, because you have to hold the pump with one hand and try to pump high-pressure air into the tire with the other. You’re like a mad accordion player and it'll tire you out pretty fast. I’ve tried this and found I couldn’t get much pressure into the tire, and have actually broken the new tube valve trying. 

So I have a narrow lightweight pump with a small kickstand on it. The kickstand is great, it lets you stand it upright and push down against the ground so you get maximum leverage. The pump also has another critical feature: a threaded connection for the tube valve, so it can be screwed down and held in place while you pump in the air. It has helped me and other riders I've lent it to, get a fairly good high-pressure air refill of a new tube.  For me, it is absolute gold.

Now that autumn approaches and the sun is heading southward on the horizon, the deeper shadows that are created give rise to another scary hazard to riders: potholes, drains or manhole covers that dip below the road’s surface. You’re probably wearing sunglasses, so they’re not great at helping you see road holes in deep shadows after bright sun. 

One remedy is to wear yellow tinted or clear glasses. The other is to slow down and really concentrate on your pothole radar when you ride through shady or sun dappled areas of a rough road. Hitting an unexpected pothole can jar you pretty good, and in the worst case, can throw you from your bike. So the extra shade/pothole vigilance these autumn/coming winter days is worth it.

And last, but surely not least, I do a lot of riding on twisting two lane country roads. Some of them have the nasty combination of fairly regular traffic, and very little, if any, bike lane. Marc just passed on a good tip to me that I’ll be doing more of in the future: He said if you see a tight curve ahead with little room on the side, do a quick look over your shoulder to see if a car is coming. If so, Marc just goes to the middle of the lane so the car has to slow down behind him until the curve is passed. Then he’ll move to the side when there’s more room. Because a few drivers – not the majority, but a few – don’t care if they run you off the road when you’re riding on the side within inches of a ditch. Marc’s technique gives the rider the full lane, at least temporarily, so the driver’s ability to do the run-off, intentionally or not, is limited. No doubt about it, defensive riding like this is a must to increase your chances of a safe ride!

So until next time, remember, always strap on a helmet before every ride. And when you’re on the bike, do all you can to keep the rubber side down!

-- Mark Eric Larson

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf