Yesterday, I took my XP to go to work. Nothing wrong with my velomobile, but since the temperatures are still rising (yes, we do have a good summer this year!) I preferred riding the XP. When I was riding home on the tow path near the canal, I noticed a man walking besides his road bike. I stopped and asked him what was wrong. Turned out he had a flat tire but nothing with him to fix it. Since I carry almost everything except an extra tire to fix flats, I offered him to help. With the tire levers I gave him, he got the inner tube out in no time, but neither one of us could find any puncture in it. We then checked the outer tire, but nothing there either. Put the inner tube back in and I handed out my compact SKS CYBER ZOOM pump. The pumps head has 2 positions, one for schrader valves and one for presta, the position of the lever at the pumps head decides which one you need. Although we pumped like madmen, we only managed to get a little bit of air into the inner tube, but nowhere near to be able to ride it. We tried both positions of the pump with the same result. Strange .... Could it be the valve itself ? When looking for what was going wrong, I noticed that during inflation, you could hear a faint hissing of air. I mentioned this to the other guy and he could hear it too. Seems that while pumping, air was getting back into the pump. Hmmm, so was there something wrong with the pump or with the valve ?
Although I've always carried the pump with the XP, I actually never had to use it before. We then stopped another rider passing by asking for a pump. Turned out he also had a SKS compact pump, but a newer version than mine (2 different openings in its head). But nevertheless, the result was the same. I felt sorry for the road bike guy, since he had to walk a couple of miles to get to the next bike shop, so I rode home, picked up my TOPEAK floor pump and returned to the tow path. But alas : the same thing happened, so it had to be the valve. I wished the guy good luck on his walk and returned home.
Back home I took the compact SKS pump and tried it on a couple of spare inner tubes lying around the garage. But no matter what kind of valves the inner tube had, the result was the same : I could not inflate them propperly. Whenever I started pumping, I heard a hissing sound of air getting back into the pump. The SKS pump is now where it belongs : in the trash. Have to get me a decent one that works !
Although I've always carried the pump with the XP, I actually never had to use it before. We then stopped another rider passing by asking for a pump. Turned out he also had a SKS compact pump, but a newer version than mine (2 different openings in its head). But nevertheless, the result was the same. I felt sorry for the road bike guy, since he had to walk a couple of miles to get to the next bike shop, so I rode home, picked up my TOPEAK floor pump and returned to the tow path. But alas : the same thing happened, so it had to be the valve. I wished the guy good luck on his walk and returned home.
Back home I took the compact SKS pump and tried it on a couple of spare inner tubes lying around the garage. But no matter what kind of valves the inner tube had, the result was the same : I could not inflate them propperly. Whenever I started pumping, I heard a hissing sound of air getting back into the pump. The SKS pump is now where it belongs : in the trash. Have to get me a decent one that works !
Trash !
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