tyre inserts buy some elastometric pipe insulation or similar in as big a size you can get as long as it fits the tyre and thwn cut it in half if you want but then you have some sort of rim protection. Not nearly as dense as cushcore or rimpact, but it does save your ass a lot
the poor man's pad cleaning technique : if you getr some lightly contaminated pads on your ride, you can usually safe them them by coating your disk in mud (can be made from your own water bottel if it's dry) and them re bed your brakes on a gentle slope. It will shriek horribly at first but once it goes away the brak should feel fine. I suppose the mud wears off the top portion of the pad that's been contaminated
I tried WD-40 applied on the lower portions of the frame (downtube, seat stay, chain stay, rear derailleur, cogs, chain ring and of course, the chain itself) on wet season. Very minimal mud had been stuck.
Actually the grass hack worked, but it should be used with a punctured tube and not with a tubeless tire. Find the punctured area of the tube and tie like a knot. Pump air back in the tube. The space that the tube knot makes inside the tire is filled with grass. Just make sure the vegetation you use to fill the space has no thorns in it😊
Did the tube knot a few times. It’s better than walking. Just have to get the tube as tight as possible. The talc in the tube tends to limit the ceiling ability. Washing the talc off before tying the tube for best results.
The quick link trick works best if you tie the string in a knot then stick a lever of some sort in the loop then twist with one hand then you can hold the chain with the other, catching any flying links once the connection is broken free. Plus its much less labor intensive 👍🏼
A quick double overhand knot that won't slip and then use a metal tool like an allen key/screwdriver/spanner to twist until it pops, a stick about as thick as your finger will do in a pinch as long as you make sure it's not rotten and mushy/brittle
Been making my own sealant for years - similar recipe to the one featured only I use propylene glycol not antifreeze, ammonia is needed in the latex as it stops it going hard and is found in lots of commercial sealants that use latex. Not 100% environmentally friendly but nor is shipping carbon fibre frames from the far East.
Just used the quick link / shoelace trick on a friends bike mid trail last week. Makes things a lot easier if you pull the chain off the front ring first to get the tension off of it.
Car tire sealant $2.70 for a bottle that does both wheels. Actually seals larger holes as well as thorns. I use all motor vehicle stuff like sealant, mineral oil, grease etc.
I have used the shoe lace hack the only difference is I used a stick to twist tighten the lace it is much more controlled way of doing it. I actually keep a shoelace in my pack all the time.
I know he's from the skinny-tired dark pit... but the sealant design was tailor made for Ollie! The real litmus test for sealant is durability and stability after a few weeks/months in the tire. It's really just glue, but with the catch that it has to seal fast, but stay liquid very long times.
I tried the greens in the flat tire many years ago and the result was the same. You can as well start to walk home instantly. On the roadie side, there is this hack with the gel wrapper used to cover a longer cut in a tire to hold the inner tube in. Maybe you can test this. Isaac‘s kit creation looks pretty good. There should be a GMBN kit with the yellow stripes design.
A hack I like to use is to cover my frame in silicone spray (making sure to keep well away from the brakes of course). Having an old-ish anodised Canyon frame (2016 spectral) , mud sticks like sh1t to a blanket! With the spray on the frame, some mud just doesn't even stick, and what does stick comes off with a garden hose making cleaning super easy. Can be applied just by spraying (remove wheels and cover calipers) or spray onto a clean cloth and rub all over the frame.
The grass hack does work, you fill it once. Then it compacts it. Take tyre off again refill it, job done. Protects the rim which is all you need. Saves the walk..
Has anyone tried Teflon or silicone (like Selleys Water Shield) or windscreen watershield on the frame to repel mud... On the motorbikes we used to spray the motor with silicone.. It didn't stop the mud but it came off easily... We changed this to Truck Wash (CT18 was a personal preference)... A spray before the ride... a spray after the ride before loading on the trailer.. and a wash off at home left the bikes looking like they were polished when we were too lazy to do more than a hose off... I still use Truck Wash on the MTB... It's brilliant and cheap.. (Face it, no one want's to anger truckers with a product that doesn't work... Which reminds me.. fre a GOOD meal cheap on the drive... forget a restaurant, go to a truck stop... Face it... No one wants to anger truckers... again...
Actually there's a product the Speedway guys use and they are basically racing circles in mud for a living... "Mud Slide" ... and it's plant based so warm fuzzies to the planet etc.
For chain quick links… I’m old and started biking long before the Interwebs. Always opended links by pushing them together with my fingers. Incredibly frustrating. Now I have a pair of aluminum link pliers with an extra link and a short section of wire coat hanger with 180 degree Hooks bent on the ends to in-tension the chain. Plus a pair of latex gloves. Luxury.
lol anti freeze is not that bad iv been covered in it from head to toe it does not do anything they have to put labels on incase some one is sensitive to it
A hack for those who still use tubes, is to use any kind of stretchy tape, like Stans No Tubes rim tape, as patches. Just used some on a punctured tube on my mtb a couple days ago, and it's holding very well.
You should try covering a slash in your tire with a bank note before putting in an inner tube. You know, to stop the tube from coming out thru the slashed tire.
Think I’m ok using sealant and just carrying some basic tools. My time not fannying about with these sort of things is worth more than the tools/products cost.
I actually used the grass in tube hack, but as it was very wet, the grass disintegrated in the tire and colored it very green. It all bunched up in one spot too, making for a very bumpy ride. Not something I can recommend.
Grass in a flat. FACT. I have done it (albeit on a 2.25 or less tyre) You need to use as dry a grass as possible, pack it as hard as possible (requiring levers to remount a tyre you probably mounted by hand previously as you can no longer put the bead in the centre of the rim as easily...) and you may need to repack it at least once on the ride back depending on distance travelled... Why?.... Because a 10k ride on a very soft tyre, very carefully (with weight redistributed to favour the good tyre) is still possibly quicker/better than pushing/carrying a bike that distance... AND... If your going to push the bike, packing the tyre with grass allows it to roll a lot better than just on the flat, as an unpacked flat tyre will quickly unbead leaving the rims exposed to damage from even a smooth gravel or tar seal road. I rode home from the top of a local quarry on sharp shrapnel rock and a steep shingle rocky exit, followed by about 3k of gravel road and 1k chipseal road to home. (See 'Red Rocks track' , Owhiro Bay, Wellington New Zealand. (This track will destroy a motorcross tyre in one day of riding (done that many times before they shut the track off because Wellington needed another barely used MTB track at the expense of the last free motorbike tracks that weren't sharing the beach with the public at Red Rocks itself... did I stand on a Soap Box again...
You will not lost the qiuck'link if you will make another loop around the linkage, plus, I cant believe you dont have chain holder or you cant make one with the lace.
The quick link hack is much easier, if you use a "twist a stick"-method to tighten it. No force needed and no parts flying around. I don't carry a quick link tool with me after learning that method, I just have a piece of dedicated string in the saddle bag, in a plastic bag, cause it does get dirty with use. You can of course also use any tool to twist it, if there are no sticks around. :)
With the shoe lace split link device, use another shoe lace or zip tie to hold the tension on the chain. The the chain won’t recoil spraying the quick link everywhere.
@isaac , you can easily cut the strip on your cap to length, it dont has to floppy-flap around like a propeller ^^ or is it a funny gimmick,then nevermind ^^ nice video btw, very entertaining ;)
Anna and Isaac, the two of you work really well together. This was really an entertaining episode and for what it's worth, that physicians coat with your glasses and long hair look really spectacular. 😉 As far as the mud sticking goes, a really good ceramic coating tends to do the trick without any of those crazy add on pieces to the frame, just sayin'.
I'm one of the weirdos that makes their own sealant. Haven't purchased sealant in well over 12 yrs. I live in the Hot AZ desert and I can manipulate my formula to last longer in my tire without drying up. I also haven't flatted on trail in years. Used it in carbon and aluminum rims and never had and issue with tires.
