Reverence: Park Tool Super Patch
The first tire patch kit I ever owned came in a big green box, had several patches of various sizes which were possibly made of old truck tires. It also came with a sheet of 60 grit sandpaper. The mild high offered from sniffing the glue while applying the patch almost made you stop caring you’d gotten a flat in the first place. Stoned on glue and hypoxic from the V is no way to mend a tire, and most times the patch would start to come off even before I pumped it up and I’d have to start over. Don’t even start me on peeling the clear cellophane off the patch.
The telephone capability of my iPhone is the least-used feature on the device; I email, schedule, text, voxer, browse, twitface, photograph, drop, forget, lose, and find my phone much more than I ever use it to place a call. It has replaced my wristwatch, alarm clock, and flashlight. For some of you, it has even replaced the cyclometer. All this is to say that in today’s view of the world, the value of a product is directly proportional to how useless its original function is.
By that measure, the Park Super Patch kit earns its place in the pantheon of the Reverence series by being more useful as a frame protector than it is as a inner tube patch. They are phenomenal tire patches – much better than the old orange-trimmed slabs of tire I used growing up, but who wants to use a tire patch, much less love one? Therein lies the answer; even as the world of Cycling irrevocably makes its departure from the tire and tube with one faction moving back to the tubular tire and another to the tubeless tire, these patches will continue to feature on frames around the world, dutifully keeping cables from scuffing paint.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Tire Patches/”/]
@Andre the Fish
I actually agree with this; It adds character for sure. In fact, I wrote a bit on this before, but have taken to adding some patches since getting the custom painted Veloforma bikes and running Yokozuna cables, which really tear into the paint. Once the paint gets beat up, I’ll get over it and go back to letting it evolve.
@frank I try to read all the articles in spurts, hence my sporadic commenting pattern. I think the quality of writing on the site is excellent. It strikes a great balance between conversational and formal. To me, the greatest asset of this site is the conversation the articles foster, and the lunatics that participate in them.
When you stand back and think about it, a bunch of middle aged guys who mostly haven’t met one another and like to wear lycra in public while riding bikes for fun like little kids are an unlikely bunch to maintain decorum, focus and humor in an internet conversation. Yet here we are, with our tongue in cheek seriousness, genuine camaraderie and hilarious arguments about something that the rest of the world considers (at best) kind of silly. You must be doing something right, just keep doing what you’re doing.
That said, what happened to good old fashioned electrical tape? Comes in a bunch of colors, sticks well, and (if you use the good stuff) leaves no residue.
Good scars, bad scars….like a lot of what we do, its nuanced @Frank. Nice writing by the way, sums it up perfectly.
@Norms use of the word patina is spot on; both good and bad come with age and use – its a time thing.
Repurposing quality materials is pro. I do this all the time. All real engineers have a repurpose gene.
It is seldom that I have a flat traceable to a patch. Fairly, since I have gone tubeless, I have not had a tube issue. My VMH is still on tubes, and since I do the maint on her bike, I have a system for patching: She carries spare tubes, and if there’s a puncture on the road, we replace with a new tube. I keep the punctured one, and if repairable, I patch it. I save those for when gyres get replaced. Fairly, not all punctures are patchable-large gashes, or a seam blows. Those get recycled.
So far, about 2000 miles on tubeless fusion 3 with SNT conversions of stock Neuvation clinchers, and no one the road failures. One puncture on a (Imperial) century that self-sealed as designed. Next upgrade for the Fucking Bike is to move to tubeless specific 2014 Eastons when the Price is Right.
But…to the point of the article, I also like purposed tech, like the Jagwire Tube Tops:
http://jagwire.com/products/v/Tube_Tops
@Mike_P
I’ve suffered a bit of a glut of punctures recently after a couple of years of with only a couples of punctured tubulars so I really can’t remember how old my park patches are (possibly pre-road bike) but I’ve had a few fail when I’ve used CO2 to reinflate.
I participated in a recent sportive that had a great idea to prevent littering: They gave you a free gel if you brought your empty wrappers back to the finish.
A free gel per empty wrapper would have been nice, but it’s a good start.
@Bigthumpa
Based on this post, I have to ask a question: are you Scottish or Dutch? You cannot be of another origin, being that cheap.
@eightzero
Have used those as well; however, if you ride cobbles or gravel, you will find them at the end of your cables where do do little good.
But they’re great for people like you whose bike sit in the house all winter rather than getting ridden.
*ducks and runs*
@frank
What is this “cobbles or gravel” you speak of?
When as old as am I you reach, look as good you will not.
@frank
Oh Frank, how you neglect Asians in this equation. Why, I bet you there were families of them out there picking the wrappers out of garbage bins and heading to the finish line with them, trading them in for a full one. In true Asian spirit, it would have been each member of the family making an exchange, 1 at a time…acting like they didn’t just come through the line 10 minutes earlier
@eightzero Those tube tops don’t do much, if anything. The problem with cable rub is grit and debris trapped between cable housing and frame. All you’ve done by adding the tube top is change where the crud gets stuck to.
I’m with the patina guys as my bikes are well worn in from several years on the road (and trail). The PT clear patch idea would be good for the n+1 I’m GASing for though.
I’m Dutch and Canadian so yes, I have a bucket-o-tubes in the basement and every intention of patching them them at some point this winter. Had Michelin Pro4 SC. Nice, but lots of flats. Switched to GP 4000s. Nice. One flat so far after 6 months.
(An iPhone can receive telephone calls? What will they think of next?)
@roger
Crud? You ride where crud can contaminate a bike? I have a more elegant solution.
@frank
Wrong ! This little black duck is hooked by the title, looks at the picture, reads article then goes to page 1 of the posts and reads.
How else can I get a feeling of what someone has bothered to write?
To do it any other way would be “Un-Australian”
@frank Wrong. I think most of us read all the articles. And what’s more I think everyone who has picked up the book at my house has chuckled and gone home to check out the web-site and maybe even signed up. You’re doing soemthing right.
And I think the tube chucking cyclist must be real, but like the yeti/bigfoot/mermaids only his tracks are seen (i.e. dead tubes at the roadside), never the creature himself. I like to think that is because, if this behaviour was actually witnessed it would be followed someone jamming an inflating device firmly where the sun doesn’t shine, preferably sideways.
@Barracuda exactly.
@Barracuda
yeah but that’s mainly because we’ll do anything to avoid actually doing work while in the office…
@freddy
I hear that with iOS8, it will be able to receive a fax, too. Its gonna be bodacious.
@eightzero
Just so I know we’re on the same page, you mean “not riding”, right?
@Frank You are a very naughty man – for one minute you made me squint at the photo as I could not decide if the front wheel belonged to the “patched” frame, and if so surely the tyre was on back to front.
@eightzero
Dammit, you stole my line!
@frank
For a long time I was just reading the articles, not actually reading the comments. Which is all to say that the quality of the writing, while irrelevant, is superb.
The last set of park tool levers I bought had a set of these. I hope they haven’t been tossed. I am still trying to figure out a good purpose for the old/scrap bar tape I have in a box… Any suggestions?
@razmaspaz
It took me a minute to catch on to how the site worked. I spent a bit of time looking for a message board or forums section. The true gems on this site come from the comments IMO. No offense @frank your writing is superb. But the true hilarity ensues when people start posting neon kits and arguing about tire sizes. I have also gleaned more knowledge about the good ol’ days of cycling in a couple days from the messages than I could in a week of internet browsing.
Cheers to the Velominati!
@razmaspaz
The writing is sad drivel, written by self-appointed guardians of the elitist notion that cycling is the purview of racers and pretend racers who are more concerned with expensive fashion than they are with just getting out and riding a bike for fun and sustainability. It drives a wedge into the cycling community and does a disservice to people and the planet.
At least that’s what the trolls all say.
The Park Super Patch also works awesome for fixing your shower curtain when rod loop thingy tears the hole out.
@DCR
Christmas decorations? The perfect door Yuletide Wreath for a cyclist – twigs rapped in old bar tape add a bit of mud, road grit and the odd picked up twig or two, what could be better? I must go and copyright the idea immediately…………
@DCR
Not sure what to do with “scraps”, but when I change mine out, I’ve used it to wrap wheel barrel handles and my lawn mower handle when the foamy wrap wears out.
@eightzero Are you trying to hijack this thread? It’s like when an attractive woman with a revealing top walks into a pub….nice welds!
@freddy
And if that woman happened to be…
Tuesday Weld?
@PeakInTwoYears
Why do you think I like it so much?
@roger
Och, I shoulda thought of that!
Meanwhile, behind the facade of this innocent looking bookstore…
@Cyclops Sweet
@frank
Not riding in crud, yes. There are these things called “roads.” And, your bike is like your ass – when done using it, you wipe it off.
@freddy
A product of the Seven factory. And the pic taken with my brand new iPhone 5s, replacing the vaseline smeared iP4 that took all the crappy pictures at the V-to-V cogal. The lens was scratched to shit, so upgrade was needed in preparation for the next Cogal.
@eightzero
And by “the next Cogal,” do you refer to a notional event that has been putatively projected for the summer of 2014 and that may or may not be a ride from Seattle to Vancouver, which one can’t know because the event remains purely notional and indeed apocryphal because it hasn’t been blessed and published by the Keepers?
@PeakInTwoYears
We will put any Cogal up. We pass no judgment as long as it conforms in the thinnest sense to the definition, notionally, if you will. Most importantly is the need for a piss up afterward. The piss up is a putative keystone of the Cogal.
@Gianni
@gianni Pretty sure Peaks is giving you some shit about the STV Cogal article “in the queue.” It contains details of the requisite PissUp.
@eightzero
Yes. I am with child to know the details of that ride, putative or even putain-itive as it may be. The darkness is descending, it’s 4:49pm and already past official sunset, and I feel a penetrating desire for some vision of the other side of this hellish tunnel I am entering for the next several months.
@PeakInTwoYears
All you need to know: 7/12/14, Arlington WA.