JulesCW 

A guy brought in a bike with a flat front tire to the bike co-op where I volunteer. Said he could not figure out how to fix it. I started taking the tire off the rim and felt something inside the tire -- thought it was a slime tube or similar. Nope. The guy had managed to remove the tire and stuffed rolled up newspaper inside it and remounted it. ;( Needless to say, it did not work. Not only was this a bizarre repair attempt, but the guy came in with a new tube and said he had that before he tried the newspaper -- but apparently could not figure out how to put it in the tire -- and that's when he tried the newspaper. Always a surprise what comes through the door at the co-op....

Chuck M 

As Red Green would say, "If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy".

dedhed

Where does one find newspaper nowadays?

veganbikes

I did something similar with grass for someone on a ride, I think we had some tube or pump issues I cannot remember so we just stuffed with grass and made it back after 150 miles of riding that weekend.

Troul 

p...a...p...e...r? what's tis pulp fiction material you speak of?

Shimagnolo

Well, that's one way to get it across the Mexican border.

Iride01 

Run flat protection!

Just need to figure out how to get it in the tube instead of just the tire.

WGB 

Better example/worse way to change tires and tube. Offer of Schwinn aluminum road bike very cheap. "Needs tires" was all ad said.
i arrived. Front tire off rim but rim still mounted.
Seller had cut off old tire and tube on rear. He took a brand new rear tire and brand new tube and cut them cross ways and then mounted them to rim (with tape to keep tire on). He'd next tried to fill tire but being cut it wouldn't hold air. He then tried gluing it but again no luck. Onto front tire where this time he got old tire off rim but with rim still mounted you see the problem. Seller very frustrated. I offered to install the brand new front tire and tube but seller just wanted bike and me gone.

​​​Seller hasn't tried just filling the tubes. When I got it home an remounted the old front tube and tire they were fine

Guys who work at garages have people who try to change car tires without using a jack. Bolts off but rim won't come off so they give up and try to drive on flat....

The culture of fix it seems to be dying, so many people have no willingness to try to repair.

Iride01 

A neighbor a few doors down had their mail box blow off the post in a wind storm. They just wrapped a bungie cord around it to hold it on now.

I'm not sure if I should just go by " at least he tried something" or " bless their heart, he tried". <grin>

CliffordK

My mailbox post was knocked crooked by a very rare snowplow a few years ago. It was still standing so I ignored it.

Until one day a couple of years later I ordered some really heavy items from E-Bay, and I found my mailbox lying flat on the back with the box inside.

I can't really blame it on the snowplow, the post was mighty rotten.

Anyway, a half day's work, and I have a new, strong post to last another 20 or 30 years.

TCollen

Red Green also said, and I believe this applies here, "This of course is a temporary fix, unless it works."

uberprutser

This story made me think about the time my nice (about 14) was going to fix a tire.
I asked her if she needed some help, but no she was confident it was a peace of cake, and she was able to do it.
Lather I would find the bicycle still in the workshop, and found out that she had glued on a patch without removing the plastic foil. And a bit later I would find out that the tube wasn’t even leaking, it just needed some air. Millennials, sigh!

3Roch

As the thread has strayed from bike only field fixes-once a very long time ago was driving my beater 1967 BWW (car) on the Baltimore Beltway when an oil line broke-losing oil and much smoke. Had tools of course but how to fix it? Undid flare nut connection and found that for some unknown reason there was one very old round of.22 ammo in bottom of tool box. Pulled bullet, put it under flare nut ,tightened it up until lead extruded from flare nut hole and drove home

cjenrick

wheelbarrow had a flat the other day, 14 bucks for a tube! stuffed the heck out of it with bubble wrap, no more flats for me, how many nails does it take to pop 10,000 bubbles?

only use the thin twice a year, found a used wheel on the side of the road that fits but it had a bad tube. blew up the last tube by burning a lot of sticks in the wheelbarrow. thin hot so hot that the tube blew one side of the rim out about 3 inches. could have been dangerous. use a 50 gal drum folks. if they allow burning in your area. if not, put a hot do on a stick and you are legal.

sorry, "g" is out on comp, needs wd 40. which is fish oil. wd stands for water displacement. guides use it on bait.

andrewclaus

I took off a MTB tire at the co-op, and found another tire crammed in below it, with a flat tube inside that.

dabac

Heading back from the beach one day, we discovered one bike had flatted, probably on the way there. Tried the grass thing first. While it worked in principle, I found it rather lacking in actual use. The grass got compressed/chewed up so fast. Didn’t get any distance at all before it needed to be repacked. After a few tries we ended up using our towels and the ugliest t-shirt instead. This worked well enough to last the 5 mile ride home.

Shimagnolo

Probably a prototype of a run-flat tire for bicycles.

canklecat

No surprise. We're in a culture where most of the knowledge acquired throughout history is a Google away on the supercomputer in our pockets, but a week ago people across America were hoarding gasoline in plastic grocery sacks.

We are the Golgafrinchans.

.

Phil_gretz

Yay, Mississippi!!!

caloso

I'm impressed. I was proud of myself for riding home 10 miles on a tire that I booted with a Clif Bar wrapper, but this is next level.

phughes

Well, they don't call you "Veganbikes," for nothing.

SoSmellyAir

This is before the days of Uber XL?

surak

That owner was close to being onto something, but not quite. On the Bobby (Julich) and Jens (Voight) podcast they interviewed Mads Pederson (world road race champ 2019) who said his trick to riding on Danish roads when there's flint everywhere was to use a cut up old tire as a liner.

I don't have any bike-related bodges but I did sell a road bike to a friend last week who didn't know how to change his car tires (had to bail him out years ago, nearly suffered injury when the car rolled off the jack because he hadn't applied the parking brake) nor how to use a can opener (leading to some stunned surprise during a Thanksgiving meal prep). I explained that he should get tire levers and watch a video on how to fix a flat, but warned him not to follow any directions that involve using a screwdriver like Stephen Colbert's.

GenesGrnMachine

There’s a lot of truth in that. I can think of a number of “temporary” fixes I’ve done that are still in play…

jccaclimber

Parents just don’t raise kids like they used to.
I’m curious, if it wasn’t leaking, how did she decide where on the tube to put the patch?