Thursday, September 16, 2010

Puncture!

RotoVelo rear wheel
I mentioned that I've already had my first puncture on the new bike. Day two, in fact. On the rear wheel. With a brand new Marathon tyre. Bah!
Fixing that was relatively easy - I had already bought a mini-pump that has a small head on a tube (Topeak Road Morph) so it's easy enough to pump the tyre up, and the advantage of the rotomolded shell is that I can just roll the velo over and not worry about scratching it. So, out with the tyre levers and a quick patch job later it's done.
What is less amusing is that the shell is close enough to the end of the axle that a standard quick release lever can't swing open properly. For those buying the cheap (cough) version with derailleur gears that means you get an allen key bolt style skewer, but for Rohloff owners I strongly suggest pitlocks or equivalent. With the wheel covers installed there's really no way to lock that wheel in place except pitlocks, and at $AUS2500 or so it's not something most people can afford to replace. So I've ordered a couple of sets of pitlocks from Germany that are keyed alike (pittted alike?), front and rear for my upright and tourer (which use the same wheels), and a rear one for the rotovelo.
I am thinking about cutting a matching hole on the other side of the valve to make access easier. The front wheels only have covers on the outside, so valve access is easy, but my full size floor pump only attaches to the valve with a lot of effort.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Moz! Nice toy!
    Looks like you're using presta valves...
    Topeak do a rather nice 90 degree pump adaptor for car valves that allows big head trackpumps to be used with small disc wheel holes. The 'nice' bit is that it presurises properly so doesn't dump all the air whilst removing the pump.

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  2. Unfortunately it's a skinny rim and I don't want to drill a big hole in it. I could stack a [presta-schrader adapter on it I suppose. Might look into that tonight when I'm at Human Powered Cycles. Thanks for the tip.

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