Finally found a use for it!

Most people would probably react unkindly if they saw the state of my garage. Actually, it's not unsanitary in any respects (well, compared to any other garage), it's just extremely untidy because I don't always get around to throwing things out as quickly as I should. Today I finally profited from that policy, which makes up for some of the time I've lost in the past trying to find things buried under all the clutter.

It has to do with a bicycle tube repair kit that I picked up in Beaudesert around 12 months ago. Actually, most of the contents of that have been used at some point or another -- which is hardly surprising given that I live in the broken glass capital of Australia. However, in ever repair kit, there always seems to be at least one BIG patch. I'm not sure why it always seems to find it's way into these kits, I can't say I've ever picked up a puncture big enough to justify it's use -- even hitting nails at 47km/h doesn't seem to have that effect. And in anycase, getting something that big to stick properly to a tube would be really difficult. Usually when a repair kit only has the BIG patch left, I just throw it out.

However, last night I discovered a nasty rupture on the rear tyre sidewall (it was the FRONT one that flatted twice on Sunday). I contemplated just replacing it, but that tyre probably only has around 5-6,000km on the odometer, so it seemed like something of a waste (I've been known to extract 20,000km from a tyre in the past). Then I saw the BIG patch, still sitting in the repair kit, unopened. Awww, what the heck! I slid it inside the sidewall in a similar way to which I once used a 5 dollar note for an emergency sidewall repair, then smothered it in the remaining glue from that kit, good as gold. It survived the ride to work today, and, dagnabbit, with a long weekend coming up, it might just see some serious kilometers in the coming days.

So after all that, I've saved $50 (or whatever it would have cost) on the tyre with something I was only going to throw out, and actually found a use for the BIG patch. Hmmm, perhaps that's why it's included in the repair kit to begin with.