If you have a bike you’ll know that it needs a certain amount of care and attention!
Some straightforward ‘living with a bike’ advice.
The very basics are – keep the tyres blown up hard (most tyres have the pressure moulded onto the side) and oil the chain before it gets too ‘dry’. For this you will need a pump and some oil! It’s a long time since every bike came with its own pump.
Mini pumps are convenient for carrying in a basic travelling tool kit, but a track pump is also worth having. Track pumps (also called floor pumps) are bigger and blow up tyres more quickly. Children love using them – every school should have one! (So should offices, public buildings etc.)
Many children say they have punctures when all the have is a tyre that needs blowing up. Soft tyres are more likely to get punctures. Punctures are fairly easy to fix and can often be done without taking the wheel off (when the location of the puncture can be identified by listening for the the air escaping).
The most important thing is to make sure the area around the hole is clean and dry. This is what the sandpaper or piece of metal that looks like a cheese grater in the repair outfit is for. If you fix a puncture using the normal glue and patch system, the crucial thing to do after applying the glue is WAIT. If the glue is slimy the patch won’t stick.
WAIT at least 5 minutes. BUT there are now ‘glueless patches‘ which just need the tube to be dry and a bit rough (sandpaper/’cheese grater’). These are slightly more expensive than normal patches and are not suitable for big gashes – as well as speed/convenience they avoid a) loosing the tube of glue, b) the glue drying up, c) the danger of solvent misuse!
