Oh well, i already had one on my rear tyre a few weeks after buying the tyre new, which i plugged myself and been using ever since, so all i'd need to do was to find a petrol station, pump it up, limp back home and plug it again...
The worrying thing was that the bike became so unstable that it was as if i was doing a skid training on ice... The rear had a mind of its own, going left, right all over the place, all the meanwhile i was still filtering through
I had to drop around 30mph and tackle any corner at walking speed until i reached a petrol station which i discovered charges 50p for a fucking air pump!!! It's been some time since i used one of those as i have my own electric pump at my car now, so i was shocked to see how much those machines become since i used them last time. Even 20p used to be too much for something that should be free in my opinion, as those petrol stations earn enough from selling the damn petrol in the first place, not to mention other bits and bobs in their shop...
Anyways, parked up, paid, pressed flat tyre button, and off i went... waited for the pump for a while, but the pressure was not increasing
so i turned the tyre a bit and found the puncture...
It was a huge cut and not a screw or nail hole as i first suspected. It's as thick as my thumb as you can see, and whatever air was pumped in came out from there. I held my thumb over it for a while as the pump continued to make sure there was nothing wrong with the air pump but there was no chance of holding air in anymore with that gaping hole...
At that point, i had two options...
1- call the AA and wait for god knows how long (1-2 hours) during rush hour traffic only to discover they sent a guy who was going to come with a standard puncture repair kit which wasn't going to help and then he'd call back and get a vehicle sent for recovery, wait another hour or so for the recovery truck to arrive, only to discover that it wasn't suitable for bikes (although i'd have specifically informed the AA guy to ask for a bike recovery truck) so another bike recovery truck would be called (another 1+ hour) and get recovered back home.
2- try limping back home on a completely flat tyre.
There was only about 5 miles remaining and i really didn't fancy a wait of 3-4 hours for a bloody recovery truck, especially after having had a very tiring sunday with home improvements and about 5 hours sleep. All i wanted was to get back home and seeing the condition of the tyre, i wasn't expecting it to be repaired anyway, so i didn't really care about damaging the internals of the tyre.
So i took option 2...
Got back home in one piece, but it was almost as scary as last year's snow/ice ride i had during winter. I felt like i had no control of the rear and the corners were very scary to tackle.
But on the plus side, i got to enjoy the scenery on my commute for the first time in ages as i was trundling along at around 30mph
The bike struggled uphill and even straight it was obvious that the engine was getting stressed. It must have been pulling much harder with added drag due to flat...
The radiator cooling fan kicked off many times due to that, and going uphill on shooters hill was a chore.
But i made it in the end, parked up and got home. My front tyre was going to need changing pretty soon, but rear had plenty of life in it, however now i'll need to get them both changed. And next time there's heavy traffic, i'll think twice before venturing in the small gaps on the very left/right sides of the road. All of the junk seem to collect on the corners.
I wonder how much the set will cost to replace
Looking back at my service notes, the rear was changed at 23200 miles. The front wasn't changed since i bought it. I bought it at 17200 miles and it's currently on 28000 so front DEFINITELY needed changing anyway, but i think rear could have done with another 2-3k...
