Would you stop to help someone whose bike has a puncture? A London bicycling insight ...

I'm back. Forgive the blog silence but I've spent the last few weeks looking after my lovely kids rather than scything my way through London's mean streets. And for the record, it was a superb time though I am now far more tired than I've been in years and I've got a terrible cold I can't shake off. I never normally get them. Is there a connection between cycling inactivity and sickness? Yes.

Blob of jelly

Anyway, I was determined to get back on the LCM (London Commuting Machine for those new to the blog) this morning. The three weeks of inactivity certainly took their toll. I was like a blob of jelly on a bike and found it quite difficult to steer properly. I was (yet again) wearing too many clothes and started boiling pretty quickly. I found myself not really being bothered about overtaking anyone (normally I'm tediously but secretly competitive), and this pretty much applied to pedestrians.

The puncture moment

To add to the general indignity, after only 5 minutes or so along the canal, I felt the familiar sensation of the front wheel becoming unresponsive when steering and a quick look down revealed just what I suspected - the tyre was flat.

Always carry one of these!

I parked up on the grass beside the canal and started fixing it, pleased that at least I'd got the right tools. As I worked, I realised that I was feeling pretty relaxed, not caring much about how quickly I did it. And I started wondering, casually, if any other cyclists would stop to ask if I was OK or if I needed a hand.

The kind Brompton man

I would add that I probably looked at least half confident in what I was doing, so there was probably no need. But towards the end, a lovely guy on a Brompton slowed down and asked very nicely if I had everything - I told him I was fine, but thanks - and he cycled off. It made me feel great and brought a smile to my face. Then I realised I was being eaten alive by some really horrid bugs - possibly mosquitoes - and rushed to get through the job and the hell out of there. Guess that slow moving canal water, grassy verges and a sweating cyclist mean paradise for blood-sucking creatures.

Anyway - thought du jour, as they say - is this: even if someone looks like they know what they're doing, it can make all the difference to stop and ask if someone's OK if they're by the road or river with the old bike upside down. Spread that karma now, you know it makes sense.

Best tyres to avoid punctures?

I don't normally post twice in a day, but I haven't been on for a few days and I have a few things stored up. This one relates to tyres too (see below). I regularly got punctures and I remember it being miserable - I got so many, in fact, that it almost put me off cycling.

So I went to the bike shop and demanded the most rugged tyres they had. (Slightly reminiscent - though only slightly - of the "Withnail and I" scene where he demands "the finest cake and wine money can buy"). They fitted me with Schwalbe tyres. I think I can safely say (and this is so clearly tempting fate that I'm almost not going to say this at all) that I haven't had a puncture in more than a year, and that's riding in fairly rough London conditions sometimes 20 miles a day.

Chatting to a friend at work (a different one to the Brompton one) he revealed that he's just switched to Schwalbe after a miserably high number of punctures in the last few weeks. I'll give an update on how he gets on (in fact he reads the blog so you could just comment here!) because it would be interesting if there was a pattern emerging and whether it's really worth spending the extra money. And by the by, my Brompton friend also has Schwalbes ... not quite sure what that means though.

The strange case of the exploding Brompton tyre

I was chatting to a friend at work yesterday and he relayed a strange story. He does a commute into work on his Brompton, then folds the thing up and parks it in his office.  He said that - for the SECOND TIME - a tyre exploded in the office with a pretty loud bang, somewhat alarming co-workers in the area.

The explanation, he says, is that a shard of glass had probably become embedded in the tyre earlier that morning. Then, as the bike warmed up in the nice cosy office, the pressure built up, culminating in a big bang. Apparently the pressure on a Brompton is pretty high anyway. No idea why, but possibly it needs to be for such tiny wheels.

Anyway - rather alarming but fascinating. Any one else had an exploding tyre in the office before? (!)

KC