Stormy weather

We had strong winds, lighting and even tornadoes last night. (None of the latter right around here, but what seemed like continual alerts on the television starting about dinnertime and continuing into the evening.) This morning dawned calmer, but with some freaky weather still in the forecast.

With questionable weather in the offing and sunny skies promised for tomorrow, I decided to continue with bike maintenance today, including some that I’ve been putting off for a while.

This is the mitigated part

I’ve been riding Kuroko with mismatched tires since I tried to fix a leaky valve stem in early April and then couldn’t get the tire to reseat. After a number of tries I just swapped out my spare front wheel, which already had a sealed tire. That’s been going well, but I want to get back on my slicks for everyday riding. I tried yesterday a couple of more times to get the tire seated, to no avail. So today I cut my losses — I put an inner tube in the tire, inflated it, and then swapped it back in place of the spare. Matchy-matchy.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll try again to remove the inner tube and see if I can get the tire to seal without it. I’ve had luck in the past doing this — using an inner tube for a while on a tire that won’t seat — and I know other bikers who say the same thing.

On to the success!

One task that’s been on the back burner for more than a month now is to remove the loose nipple that I left rattling around inside the rear rim when I rebuilt the wheel. I didn’t remember the nipple was in there until I had the tire mounted and filled with sealant, and since then I’ve been putting off dealing with the mess of removing the tire and cleaning up the spilled sealant so I could (I hoped!) rattle the loose nipple out through the valve hole. (I’m also reluctant to unseat any tubeless tire that’s sealed well.)

It didn’t take long to get the tire off and clean up the sealant. After wiping the rim clean I sat down with it and started shaking it, hoping to rattle the nipple out. After a couple of minutes of trying, I cleaned up some ragged edges of rim tape around the valve hole. I shook and rattled some more, with no luck. I tried putting a hex key in the valve hole to snag the nipple as it went rattling past. I tried a very small hex key with some tape wrapped around it, sticky side out. Same result.

Finally, as I was trying to clear another edge of rim tape from the valve hole, I pulled off a larger section of tape than I’d planned. I shrugged and continued pulling off the tape until I had the rim completely clean. Then I picked up the wheel again, and almost the moment I began shaking it, the nipple fell out onto the floor of the Workshop in the Sky.

Excited by this success, I grabbed a paper towel and used it to remove the remaining latex residue around the rim. Then I got out the truing stand to hold the wheel while I taped it up again.

Luck was with me today as I had just enough rim tape to get the job done. (I have another roll in a different color, just in case.)

With the rim freshly cleaned and taped, and the valve in place, it was time for the moment of truth: would the tire seat up again? I charged up the reservoir on the tire pump, removed the valve core and attached the pump head. There was a prolonged whoosh, and then the tire bead edged up onto the rim. I was about to make sure it had seated all the way around when the tire emitted a series of loud pops, confirming that it had sealed fully.

No fuss, no soapy water — just a seated tire.

As always, at that point I rushed to get the latex sealant into the tire through the valve, install the valve core, and then inflate the tire a final time. As I swirled the latex around inside the inflated tire, I initially heard just a small leak, but this was sealed up in a moment.

Prepped and ready

Now that my two spare wheels are ready to roll (and I’ve got new brake discs waiting for them both), I can proceed with the plans I have for them. Those plans depend on whether Kuroko’s rear drop-out continues to make trouble. Amusingly, while I was looking up posts related to this one, I came across a photo I’d taken after my return from Shimanami Kaido, and it clearly shows that the bolts are loose.

In the meantime, Kuroko is ready for tomorrow’s sunshine, with nicely matched tires full of air.

Finally, as I was cleaning up after today’s project, a squall rose up and confirmed my decision not to ride today.

New tag: Mechanical

I’ve come up with a new tag for posts that will help visitors to this site decide if they want to take up this hobby before they’ve invested a lot of time and money: Mechanical.