The Flat

This weekend, while Big Brother and I were rolling around on the Bullitt, Jose and Little Brother were galavanting on the Mundo elsewhere. I missed the nine phone calls and text messages because it turned out that about four miles from home, the Mundo had a total blowout. Jose pushed the bike home with Little Brother on the back (I will note that they were across the street from a bike shop when the flat happened but Jose doesn't like it so he continued on). 

They both got home safely but the Mundo's rear wheel was covered in blue slime (thanks, self-sealing tubes...). 

Today, feeling emboldened by my success at replacing the Linus's newly respoked rear wheel (thanks, Tim!) and connecting the Nexus hub, I was ready to take on the Mundo's mondo wheel. 

She's back in business!

First challenge, taking off the Peanut Shell to flip over the bike and get at the wheel. Our children have totally decimated our entire socket wrench set so I was stuck using an adjustable wrench. I got the two bolts off of one side and was able to slide it off the deck without too much trouble.

Over she goes!

Next, again with the adjustable wrench to get at the giant nuts for the Mundo's giant hub. Sadly, when I tried to take the wheel off a few days ago, I realized that my Antload Yuba tool was made for the Mundo's "standard" 18mm hex nut, mine was one of those rare ones with a 19mm. Luckily Mike Cobb is going to cobble a new one together for me as soon as he can (which unfortunately is not very soon but he's still pretty awesome). 

This would have made the job much easier.

The wheel skirts also got in the way of taking the wheel out but eventually I got it off. It does make it easier to shift down to the lowest gear first. 

Next, the fun part. Goo. 

The ENTIRE tire looked like this. It required a hose down. It was gross. 

This photo is supposed to show the floppy valve stem.

A quick blast of air made the hole super easy to find. The valve stem had torn about 3/4 of the way off. That explains the explosion of slime. I still did a thorough check of the tube to see if there were any other holes, checked the inside and outside of the tire, and cleaned everything up. Nothing else noticeable. 

I got out a new tube (heavy-duty, super thick, and self-sealing, again), got the tire back on the rim (it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which direction it was supposed to go and I still had it wrong when I put the wheel back), pumped the tube up slightly to shove it back into the tire, replaced the tire liner, and eased the tire bead back into place. One more massage around the tire to make sure the tube wasn't pinched or twisted anywhere then I pumped it back up to 60psi. Before I put the wheel back, I decided to clean out the cassette a bit, too. It was gross. I can now see why Cassidy recommends wearing gloves while attempting to do this on your way to work or some other "fancy" location. 

Finally, with a few finger-pinching and knuckle-gouging attempts, I "eased" the wheel back into place. Again, it was much harder to get the bolts tightened down without a socket wrench but I managed. So far, it's held air although the tire is still on backwards (I may bring it into Practical Cycle before the rains show up to have this fixed) and after riding the bike a bit, I noticed that the brake might be rubbing a bit. I've heard that disc brakes are supposed to be easier to adjust but I haven't had that experience.  

And I did it all in a skirt...which is now pretty filthy...but I did it!