A tale of a puncture

You know how it goes, you get to work one day and find a great big screw in your rear tyre.

I fretted about it for a bit but it didn't seem to be leaking so I just rode home on it, no bother. "I know" I thought, "I'll fix it wi' me plug kit! Yeahhh". The tyre is that horrible Mitas and there's bugger ll tread left on it but I don't have a replacement and I need to get to work so..

And all is well again. Okay so the first mushroom fell back inside the tyre but I lopped the end off before I blew the tyre up, the second time I blew it up and then lopped the excess off and it seemed okay. Is that normal? I can't remember, maybe it is. Confident in the mush I leave the pump and kit at home and set off on the commute in the morning.. Ohh how short my memory is. This happened previously on the CB250. About a mile from work the plug falls inside the tyre and a very quick deflation event occurs. I stuff it in the entrance to a farmer's field and walk the rest of the way, rasser frasser nasser..

I decide the only sensible course of action is to borrow (ahem) a large screw from work, turn it into the hole and push the bike all the way to Morrisons where I can blow it up at their petrol station.It's only 0.9 miles away, how hard can it be?

While I'm sweating buckets pushing it to the supermarket (okay it's pushing itself on tickover in first but it's still hard!) a bloke zips past on his Triumph, turns around at the roundabout and comes back. He has the audacity to ask if everything is okay. I point at the rear tyre. He gets off his bike, delves into his fancy Kriega bag and chucks a string-type puncture repair kit at me with instructions to just drop it back at the gatehouse at Triumph which is where he works. He then has the audacity to mention he's never had to use it.. I was conflicted. Anyway! Rasp the hole, thread the sticky rubber string dog treat thing through the eye of the needle and shove it in the hole, then lop off the excess. The result:

Many thanks also to the other man who works for Triumph who stopped his run to help me with this, he held on the front brake while I shoved into the rear tyre - it takes a surprising amount of shove but if you're on your own you may get away with just sticking the bike in 1st gear.

More pushing, 0.9 miles is sooo farrr..

The plug worked a treat, it's still blown up just fine 1.5 weeks later. I think I am converted to string repairs now, I've had the mushroom kit fail twice with plugs falling back inside the tyre and you need a pair of pliers to pull on the stem of the mush which isn't included in the kit. With the string repair you have everything, and the rubber is so sticky it's not going to just fall inside. I always expected the rubber to be messy, but it wasn't at all - the hardest bit was threading it into the eye of the needle, and that wasn't too hard.

Thanks Triumph people, anyway. I set off straight to the gatehouse where I handed the kit in, such was my enthusiasm at the time.