Friday before last when we rode the tandem to work I had to add a bit more air to the front tire than the normal touch up after a week or two of inactivity. So this Thursday night I checked to see what the air pressure was and sure enough it was low. So I pulled the tube, found a small leak and patched it. The patched tube became our spare and I put a new tube back in the front tire.
On the way home from work on Friday a couple miles from home we hit a big piece of gravel with the front tire in just the wrong way in that it snapped up, poked through the sidewall and punctured the tube. Hss, hsss, hsssss. No problem, we always carry the stuff needed to fix a flat. Unsnap the front panniers, back the whole front quick release out and remove the wheel. I pull the tube and place the recently patched one back in.
To pump it up we have one of those CO2 cartridge things where you tighten the bottom into the top to puncture the cartridge. Well, I twist it a couple times and then it gets too hard to turn. I back it off and try again. This time I force it so much that I strip the plastic threads. Crap. Fortunately we also carry one of those collapsible 4 section pumps too. After about a 100 strokes I get enough air in the tire to limp home.
Thursday night I dropped Donna off at the home of a co-worker’s house for the ASCO Ladies Christmas party. On the way back home I noticed that the low tire pressure light was on. I figured it was a 3 p.s.i. air loss, just enough to trigger the light, that seems to happen annually around this time of year. Today I broke out my little garage air compressor and started filling tires. Left rear, down 3 p.s.i to 32. Left front down 3 to 32. Right front down 3 to 32. Right rear, down 8 to to 27. Huh? As I go to attache the chuck, right there at eye level, I see a nail sticking out about an inch, right at the radius as the the sidewall transitions to the tread. Right at a place that represents new tire not plug & patch.