As the saying goes, “needs must”.

Did my normal commute to work last Thursday evening, I was nights, and got a puncture in my rear tyre about a third of a mile from my work. As I’m a very poor handyman, at the best of times, I decided to walk the rest of the way, pushing the Subway 1. Got there O.K., I’m normally 15-20 minutes early, when I ride the bike, in order to cater for any mishaps on the way, I’d hate it, that I should delay my colleagues from going home on time.

The great news is, I fixed the puncture, and got the bike back together during my breaks overnight. What’s more, it all held up for my journey back home, in the morning. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I decided to ride in early the next day (Friday), as the sun was out, I thought I’d cycle along the seafront at Aberavon. When I arrived at roughly the same spot as the day before, the rear tyre punctured again!

So another 15 minute walk to complete my journey.

Once again I was busy during my breaks, but things didn’t go so well as they had the previous evening. Checking the inner tube, I found the puncture was right in the middle of the patch I’d used the night before. Quite a coincidence, I mean what were the chances of that happening? I thought to myself. Putting it down to just that, a flukey coincidence, I removed the patch and put a new one on. Wrong!!!

When I pumped it up it seemed fine, so I deflated and inserted it back into the tyre. and pumped it up, ready for the morning. Half an hour or so later, I felt the tyre, only to find it had gone down. So I went through the whole procedure again, to find the inner tube had been holed again, but on the inside, directly opposite, the new patch I’d put on. Presumably, my first repair, the night before had left some sharp debris inside the tyre, or probably in the inner tube itself, that caused the patch to be pierced, and now the inner wall as well.

So I put another patch on this new puncture, and pumped up the tube, but this time I left it, to see if it would stay inflated. Sadly, when I did check it later it had gone down. I wasn’t prepared to go through the rigaramole again so I got out a brand new spare inner tube from my pannier bag, and pumped it up, to check it was O.K.. I then pumped up the original again, intending to find the “new” puncture. I couldn’t find any hole in it, and it remained inflated ? I put it down to a temporary problem with the valve, because it stayed up all night. Meanwhile, I put the new inner tube into my back tyre, and made it home again on that. Of course, I still have a spare inner tube, albeit it has two patches on it.

Gosh it has taken a long time to explain all that, I hope it all makes sense.

They say practise makes perfect, I know I’m faraway from perfect, but those two nights mending punctures, going through the procedures etc., has made me alot more confident of dealing with them in the future.