wphamilton

I thought I'd slip one more Greenway commute in last night before it floods again, still raining after it had rained lightly all day. About a mile in I came to the Webb Bridge trailhead and a cluster of ambulance, police car, another one further in, in the dark, couple of cops standing around. Cops wouldn't say anything, surly actually, so peering down the path I could see there was still activity going on and I decided that going through would be too brazen, even for me. It took about 3 minutes for a gap in the traffic to allow me to cross the street for my alternate route, and I was in a hurry because the road is kind of narrow right there, on a bridge. I got up to speed quickly but didn't get 50 feet before hitting a pothole, hard, hidden in a puddle. Instant flat, rode it a little to get off the bridge, replaced the tube fairly quickly but first CO2 cartridge - leaking out as I fumbled for the valve stem, wouldn't fill the tube. Weird as that sounds, that's the fact and I have reason to suspect a buggered up thread. I had another, the danged thing wouldn't screw into the pump head. Fortunately I had a THIRD cartridge and it worked.

I got around to looking at the remaining cartridge at home after patching the pinch flat, and sure enough the first two threads were badly bent. Trying to pull them down with needle-nosed pliers - it is my last cartridge after all - it punctured the neck. That great deal on 3 cartridges on Amazon is not looking so great now. I don't know if I want to try again and rig some sort of cap on the threads, or just get another mini-pump.*

*ha, I found another 3 CO2's, threads intact, so I can put that decision off for awhile. Must have been a pack of 6 that I bought.