2012 Black Cat Awards

[jgon286]

Okay, looks like I can qualify at last. Had a great ride yesterday - 65s in total. My longest ride in one day yet. Took it out of the garage for a clean-up this afternoon and found the rear tyre flat. Could not figure out how it happened and resorted to dunking the whole wheel in a shallow bucket to look for the telltale bubbles. Would you know it... A small piece of rusted metal no more than 2 mm long! Thought I had it solved, but heard another hiss somewhere else after fitting a new tube on.

And found a defective valve on my wife's mtb while cleaning it up to take my 12 year old on a ride in the Nasho tomorrow. No spare tube, will have to drop in to the LBS tomorrow morning. Could be risky. There's always something to shop for in a LBS!

So me - off the mark with 2.

[mikesbytes]

+1 = 2 for this year

Rear on the fixie, which has gatorskin, tyre liner and that gunk stuff in the tube. The gunk wouldn't fix it, so I had to pull it out and the problem was that the tyre liner had split and that split had caused the flat

[csy75]

+1, first for the year on the bottom of the valve near rim... no way of fixing that tube!

[sjw0410]

First flat for the year. A sharp rock straight through the centre of the rear Maxxis Refuse.

[teak81]

I have just bought a new road bike and definatly dont want flats. I also drive a semi. So i thought to myself if the council doesn't sweeep my commute route i will !!! over the last couple of days i have driven the semitrailer over the route and over the fog line and cleared most of my route from rocks.

[number21]

+ 2 for me.

First was morning ride last wednesday. After 3 or 4 stops in the first 30 minutes after leaving home to adjust my rear derailleur (new chain) I was quite p!ssed off to get a flat to compound my frustration! Tyre was slit, and something snuck through. Used a patch cause I couldn't be bothered with changing a tube by this stage. Eventually had a good ride, came home to grab my backpack for work and commute to find the patch had now failed... Retired both the tube and tyre.

Second was Sunday, looking forward to a relaxing longish recovery ride then got caught in a massive downpour. Then made then bad bad decision to take Bunnerong Rd out to La Perouse. Caught with nowhere to go on a horrible mess of brown water filled potholed road and ended up going through one that must've been way deep, like those ones people disappear into on Funniest Home Videos, glad I didn't go head over. Stopped to check the damage and heard the hiss... Changed the tube in the pouring rain, getting splashed by every passing car then about 20 minutes later discovered one of my bidons must've fallen out also. Happy days!

Total 3 for the year

[mikesbytes]

+1 = 3 total

As posted in "Gatorskin worst tyre evvar"

I'm decending Burns Bay rd (the Sydney'ites will understand) match the car speed on my fixie and the handling gets progressively worse every corner, I know I've got a flat but I so wanna make it to the bottom, there's a cage in front of me, a cage behind me and one beside me, no side area, if I stop I block the traffic, the lanes are narrow. I make it to the bottom and change my tube. Couldn't find the cause of the flat

[twizzle]

Bwahhh haaa haaa! Still none for me!

And Ozkaban is joining us.

5 - NhiTrac
3 - __PG__, number21, mikesbytes
2 - brades68, jgon286
1 - gretaboy, teak81, madrapper, Kev365428, sdnelson, Warnesy, coffeeandwine, DavidTomic, csy75, sjw0410
0 - Twizzle, Baalzamon, Max, CommuRider, hannos, martinjs, grantw, jcjordan, Ozkaban

[ZepinAtor]

Chiming in a little late, but last week I had a self inflicted puncture while riding up a 45 degree concrete wall under an overpass on the Kedron Brooke bike path. It's a tradition for me to call out "ride the wall" to my partner which scares the poo out of her.

Re-entry was a little rough & came down hard on small lump of concrete. Thought I was pretty clever as it was all good for a while............................then it went all squishy in the rear end.

1.

Had another one just around the corner from the wall 2 days later while hurtling across a rough bridge. I normally go fairly slow & take in the scenery. Flowing water, ducks & turtles hang out there. Hit a big crack in the bridge/ path junction while on a hard lean cornering. 10 seconds later psstt...flat

+1 = 2

[madrapper]

Lent a CO2 cartridge and adaptor to a fellow rider this morning... only to later have a puncture myself (thorn).
Resigned to having to use the pump, I was most happy when the same gentleman who punctured earlier rode by and re-united me with my adaptor! And then motorpaced me to the coffee shop!

Total for 2012 = 2

[NhiTrac]

Sigh...

+1 for me Twizzle. That takes me to 6 for 2012.

Got a flat today on the M5 morning commute.

Just bought some tyre liner so hopefully I won't be participating in this comp for much longer!

[mikesbytes]

+1 = 4

Rear of the fixie again on the way to work this morning. So much for Gatorskins. And I'd forgotten to replace yesterdays tube so only one tube. Hope I don't get a flat on the way home.

More importantly, I lost the pin out of the brake leaver that allows the brakes to released for wheel placement by sliding the pin over. I had a solid look for it but no success

[silentbutdeadly]

I'm at 3 for the year already. Double flat yesterday (pinch flat followed by another due to a stick contaminated tyre) and another fail today (which I suspect is a repair failure).

[Cruiserman]

+1 = 4

Rear of the fixie again on the way to work this morning. So much for Gatorskins. And I'd forgotten to replace yesterdays tube so only one tube. Hope I don't get a flat on the way home.

More importantly, I lost the pin out of the brake leaver that allows the brakes to released for wheel placement by sliding the pin over. I had a solid look for it but no success

Brakes on a hipster fixie wash thine mouth with caustic soap.

[mikesbytes]

+1 = 5 Rear again on the way home, turned out to be a pinch flat, though I don't recall hitting anything. This time I didn't have a spare. Ended up calling someone who lived nearby to give me a tube.

[Wal42]

Hey Zep, do you do that wall thing on a MTB?? Had a guy do that coming the other way last week, thought he was going to clean me up. None so far this year, but have just fitted a new set of Gatorskins for train/commuting, I hope all the bad publicity is wrong as I want to try to beat last year.

[jcjordan]

First one for the year.

Slow leak coming down Upper Sturt Road on the homeward run from Stage 2 of the TDU.
(I just put this in to rub it in on all of you who cant be here having fun in the sun)

[mikesbytes]

Is my name Twizzle?

+1 = 6. Rear flat again on the way to. This time I found that the rim tape had shifted, leaving a slight opening over one of the spoke holes.

Toff and I stopped at bike bug and I purchased 2 tubes while Toff brought some white cables

[twizzle]

Is my name Twizzle?

+1 = 6. Rear flat again on the way to. This time I found that the rim tape had shifted, leaving a slight opening over one of the spoke holes.

Toff and I stopped at bike bug and I purchased 2 tubes while Toff brought some white cables

Mate, six in the first 18 days of the year? Heading for 120+ punctures!?

[ZepinAtor]

Hey Zep, do you do that wall thing on a MTB??

No on the CF roadie with 23mm Gators. That's what makes it soo much fun, although I do always look out for others before launching into it as the re-entry can be a bit dodgy.

[madrapper]

Was checking out the schmoadie tonight - making sure it was cool for the hit-out tomorrow morning. Alas it was not. Rear tyre was half flat due to a piece of glass which I must of picked up on Tuesday morning's blat
+1 = 3

[mikesbytes]

Is my name Twizzle?

+1 = 6. Rear flat again on the way to. This time I found that the rim tape had shifted, leaving a slight opening over one of the spoke holes.

Toff and I stopped at bike bug and I purchased 2 tubes while Toff brought some white cables

Mate, six in the first 18 days of the year? Heading for 120+ punctures!?

I'm in luck, the 2 tubes I brought have removable valves, so I'll put some puncture repair fluid in them. I'm on holiday for 2 weeks with limited riding so hopefully I won't do another 4 flats while I'm away

[twizzle]

Fat biarch!

+1 = 1. After one week on the tubeless "Intensive", hit something in traffic while taking off from the lights in a row of cars, rapid loss of air and sealant and it would only seal once most of the air was gone. 20 minutes stuffing around by the side of the road trying to patch the tyre, in the end I gave up and fitted my emergency "maxxis refuse". This was after wasting 10 minutes at the start of the trip when I dropped the chain and it came off the bottom jockey wheel and jammed in the cage. Oh, and guess what happened when I put the wheel back on the bike?

[NhiTrac]

+1 = 7

Only couple minutes away from home at 5.30am this morning. Looked down, looked up, large rock, pinched rear flat

... I dont wanna play this game anymore

[ZepinAtor]

+1 = 7

Only couple minutes away from home at 5.30am this morning. Looked down, looked up, large rock, pinched rear flat

... I dont wanna play this game anymore

2 more lives & you'll need a new cat.