A clever story about a flat, Caveman teeth and ingenuity

I  pre rode the XTERRA Richmond course shortly after our arrival from XTERRA Northwest Cup in Coeur D’Alene, where I had a 4 inch nail puncture my tubeless tire in 2 places. See previous blog.

My replacement tire was in the mail, so I rode the tire with the 2 nail holes, and just put in a tube. Of course it flatted. I changed the tube. It deflated faster than I could pump. Before putting our last tube in I carefully inspected for sharp objects.

It also deflated faster than what I could pump.

We still had a lot of riding to do and I wasnt going to call it quits.

I was going to make that tire tubeless again.

First I used a bottle cap to scoop the sealant from the healthy front tire and put it in the rear. With the 2 huge holes.

To make sure the front tire seal, I poured energy drink from my drink bottle in the tire…

We had one Genuine Innovations tire plug.  We cut the plug in half and hoped the 2 small plugs would seal 2 big holes. Of course they didnt. So I took left over electrical tape, wound it into rope and plugged the hole. Like so:

You may also wonder what I did to get a tubeless valve. Thats easy, I used my Caveman teeth and chewed the valve stem out of a tube…

Sidewall plugs are notoriously hard to seal and despite the 1/2 tire plug, rolled up electrical tape and sticky drink  mixed with Slime and Stans it still kept leaking.

That is where the Boer* came out of the Caveman.  “a Boer makes a plan” so I wound a tube tightly around the tire, covering the 2 holes.

* “Boer” is an Afrikaaner or farmer from South Africa.

To anchor the loose end, I tied it around the hub and got immense pleasure from cutting the left over tube off with the razor sharp brake rotor. Instead of using my teeth again… (it leaves a funny taste in your mouth)

With this clever trick, the more pressure you put in, the better the system works.

In fact it worked so well, we finished our 5hr ride, which included a coffee and cake stop at The Crossroads cafe, right on the course.

The soft rubber offers such great traction on these wet, rooty surfaces at the next Specialized tire testing I’ll suggest we cover the tire with a layer of tube.

In fact, I think I should apply for a position at engineering…

There, I fixed it! The next day the tire was still 100%!