TT Report, Day 2: Feeling the Pinch

I know, kind of jumping ahead here. I haven’t given a day one report yet. I will get to that. Finding time on Wi-Fi hasn’t been my number one priority, for reasons you will see.

Heading out from Dover, the riding was absolutely gorgeous. The weather report called for rain all day, but scrolling down to the bottom of the report, I saw it was going to rain a total of .05” in the next 24 hours. So overcast, a cool mist to counteract the sweat, not much risk of sunburn (ordinarily much higher risk down here, as close as we are to the ozone hole; apparently in AUS and NZ grade schools, their equivalent of the “hey kids, don’t do drugs“ program was “hey kids, don’t get skin cancer”).

As near as I can tell, the entire TT is a net zero elevation gain, ending each leg in a valley and biking a sawtooth trail all day long in between. But Booster really comes into her own in these conditions. My quads aren’t remotely in good enough shape for these hills, but this bike loves climbing uphill in the mud.

About 90 minutes out of Dover I finally met a patch of downhill riding, and I got overeager. At about 35 kph I heard the back wheel hit a rock and knew I got a pinch flat.

It was as nice a place as any to take a lunch break, though about two hours too early for that. Or so I thought. Changing a flat usually takes me 5 to 10 minutes. Add 15 minutes to that for taking all the gear on and off the bike, and an extra minute or two for picking all the M&Ms and cashews off the ground that I inevitably spilled from my feed bag the instant I turned the bike over. Now add two hours to that because removing this tire was a motherfucker.

Prior to this year, I had never used tubeless-ready tires before, or even known about tubeless technology. I went back and forth about upgrading Booster to tubeless, and ultimately decided against it because it adds a little bit of rolling resistance and ultimately you have to carry tube tire repair stuff anyway, in case you tear a sidewall. But on this day I sure wished I had been running tubeless, because you can’t get a pinch flat if you don’t have an inner tube.

Here’s the thing: the way a tubeless tire works, the wire beads where the tire meets the wheel have to seat in the rim much tighter than an ordinary bike tire. I knew unseating them was a real bastard. The first time I did it, I had so much trouble with it that I rode straight to my friendly neighborhood bike shop (shoutout to K&G) to ask what specialized piece of equipment I was missing to get this done. Dude showed me a trick to do it by hand, but even he said it can be a really tough job. Even so, I have never seen a tire as stubborn as this one.

So when the first tire lever broke, I knew this pit stop would run long. If you want to see how difficult this job is, here’s a professional bike repair teacher struggling with it with three steel tire levers, a workbench, and a goddamn vice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NLdPxWUz86M

Believe you me, I babied that second tire lever. I didn’t dare put serious pressure on it, given how quickly the first one broke. And after an hour and a nasty torn fingernail, I finally got the first bead unseated.

Patching the pinch flat was easy enough after I got the inner tube out, though the stick-on patches proved to be not so sticky in the rain. (Number two on the shopping list after new tire levers: a traditional glue-based patch kit.) The rain added another degree of complication to everything: I had to keep the inner tube, tire liner, and the interior of the tire free of debris or else little gritties would just wear down new punctures in the inner tube. Not so easy on a dirt track. But some soft tacos of peanut butter and cheddar cheese did wonders for morale.

Then it came time to unseat the second bead, which proved to be even more bullheaded than the first. But if you don’t unseat it, you don’t have enough laxity to get the first one reseated. So it had to go, but it wouldn’t go down without a fight.

You guessed it. Bye bye, last remaining tire lever.

Now I have a job that even a professional needs a vice for, and my best tool is a soft taco. Well, that and nature’s original tire levers. I tore them all to hell but after an eternity in the rain they got the job done.

The silver lining is getting that motherfucker reseated saved me a long walk back to Dover. And the rest of the day’s riding was the best I’ve ever done. The coolest stretch was called Boney Road, Miles of knobby pale stone with tons of tricky maneuvering. Found a lovely little place to stealth-camp a few miles after that, and had some veggie burritos and hot cocoa before a good night’s sleep

Mind you, I am two days into this and still haven’t finished the 28 km to Geeveston. (Day one trip report to follow.) I think this puts me in the running for Worst Bikepacker in Australia. But three cheers for my grip strength, anyway.