She's a real left winger 'cause she been down south

[venta]

Hurrah. Go me. For the first time that I remember, I've just managed to change an inner tube on the back wheel of my bike without assistance.

I mean, I know how to do it - but there's always been a bit where I've just lacked the brute force to carry it out by myself. Usually either getting the tyre back on the wheel, or getting the wheel back on the bike.

I've been taking the back wheel on and off a lot recently (the chain keeps falling off and wedging itself inconveniently between the cassette and the fork), so I've got the hang of that now. It turns out violence actually is the answer. And the tyre went back onto the rim with only a minimum of angry tussling. I suspect this means my tyre is getting old and floppy and will probably soon have to be replaced :(

But in the meantime: hurrah!

Next stop: work out why the damn chain keeps falling off. Which probably requires me to understand the adjustment of derailleur gears.

Also, note to self: do not buy inner tubes with Schrader valves. Actually, I didn't buy these. A colleague gave me a box of ten he'd found in his loft, since he no longer had a bike with wheels of the relevant diameter. Which was kind of him, and saved me a bunch of money. However! Unlike what I choose to call proper valves, there is no retaining nut of any kind to hold a Schrader valve in place.

So... when you arrive to find your tyre is very flat, and decide to pump it up enough to get you to your office, you take your little foldy push-fit pump out of your bag...

... and push the valve inside the tyre. Bring back old-skool bike pumps with screw fittings, I say, instead of these modern-fangled ones. After extensive practising, I reckon you need one hand to hold the valve in place, one hand to fit the pump, and one hand to flip the lever that clamps the pump in place.

Since I only appear to have two hands, I think I'll stick to Presta.

Comments

[pm215]

Huh. I thought Presta and Schrader valves had different diameters such that you had to use the one that was the correct size for the hole in your wheel rim...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

There is a third kind of valve, the Dunlop, which is the same diameter as the Schrader but which fits a Presta pump. And I guess is often elided with Presta for casual purposes?

[pm215]

IME Dunlop/Woods valves are almost nonexistent for actual bikes here. I had a rental bike in Japan once with Woods valves and they were a complete pain in the neck. They also have a comedy user-error mode where you can take the middle of the valve out completely resulting in the sudden total deflation of the tyre you were hoping to pump up a little...

[venta.livejournal.com]

The valves are certainly different diameters; the Schrader valves are rather wider-bore. I hadn't really thought about it, and assumed they were interchangeable.

Certainly the front wheel is the one which originally came with the bike, and came with a Presta valve on it. The back wheel was replaced relatively recently, and I guess the shop that replaced it put the same tyre and (Presta) tube back on after replacement. I then put a Schrader tube on the back wheel without problems...