The Wipe Down

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• @Oli

  I take it Andre Greipel hasn't called asking for his gloves back yet?  Or are they Tom Boonens?

• They were Didi Thurau's.

• "Paul Sherwen is always saying the rain causes more “flints” to wash into roads, hence more punctures on rainy days. I’m thinking, if anything, the rain washes “flints” off the road but in any case the wet causes the troubles. Again, Paul was a Pro but I’m one year older (we share the same birthday, I did not know that) so that’s a wash."

  I believe he was talking about roads round my neck of the woods where gravel, flints and everything else does wash into the roads.  Loads of the lanes around here have fields above the road level.  Sample locations below.

• @Oli

  Looks like that lever by your hand could be turned in some .

• Enough already, STOP doing this!

  I used to use my shoe to clean potential detrius, but that was only when commuting and using (ugh!) mud guards.  Typically employed the much discussed and, I thought, more elegant method of my glove on the front tire and a light finger or more on the rear.  That all came crashing to an end while on a social ride on my much loved Colnago C40. I came to an abrupt, painful and damaging 'hard landing'  resulting in a crushed vertebrae, nine weeks in a body brace and months more recovering.  It seems the Colnago has a little less clearance between tire and seat tube than my other bikes and my hand got jammed as I was extracting it from the completed task.

  In conversations with other riders afterwards, I discovered three friends had managed the same trick but with somewhat less serious consequences.  One resulted in a dislocated shoulder, another survived more serious damage by falling onto the barrier railing.  It seems cyclists never talk of the results of this kind of foolishness in a preventative fashion, only in terms of survivor.

  To repeat: STOP doing this!  The potential and unproven savings of flatting just aren't worth the risk.

• I've been cleaning my tyres for years with my fingers, especially in the winter to remove all the crap off the tyre. Gives you that nice feeling looking at a clean tyre, knowing it's ready for another days hard work.

• @Oli

  They were Didi Thurau’s.

  This

• @frank

  Or just outside Iper ride over something sharp and agricultural and slice your tyre clean in two.

  Although on the plus side we now know that you can run a Shimano cassette on a Capagnolo set up for at least 130kms without dying

• Also this is part of Rule #40 - because your tyre label is always over the valve, when you find the hole in the inner tube you can match it to the point where the thorn went through the cover.

  True misery is detonating your last tube in the pissing January rain because - even though you know that there has to be something sticking in the carcass your fingers are too numb to find it.

  Although if you start squelching your way to shelter (looking like one of Napoleon's currasiers walking back from Moscow after having eaten his horse) Police Scotland will sometimes give you a lift home.

  During the drive home they will take a keen interest in your mental health.

• @Gianni

  @DeKerr

  Veloflex FTW!

  And, as @DCR put it, it’s surface tension allowing “pointy things” to work their way into the tire. A shard of glass does not (usually) instantly pierce the carcass (I just want to write “pierce the carcass”… and try to say it without giggling) but instead insidiously works its way into the weave.

  I feel vindicated. And I had to work at juggling “lubrication” and “penetration” in this post without the usual adolescent male remarks, and it was work!

  If something pertinent had cropped up you should have just worked it in.