I was hoping to get on the road really early today to try and beat some of the traffic but it just seemed to be one of those days and instead of being really early I was really late it must have been nearly 8 o’clock by the time I left the hotel! But hey that’s life no point getting stressed about it! Anyway the road out of Kathmandu wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be, possibly because I’d psyched myself up for it to be really bad! I always find that if I psych myself up for something it usually works and isn’t as bad as you expect!
Had my first puncture this morning, funnily enough just past the place I’d stopped the night before arriving in Kathmandu, as I went round one of the twisting corners I could feel the back of the bike starting to slide out, so I immediately looked down at the back wheel and sure enough the tyre was going down or rather by now it was flat!
I pulled over to the side of the road and took all the panniers off, turned the bike upside down and took the wheel off, past experience has taught me it’s always easier to take the wheel off to fix a puncture rather than try and do it whilst still on the bike. Annoyingly I couldn’t find the puncture and I had to replace the inner tube with a new one! Which is a pain but it’s always a bit worrying that I never found where the puncture was as there could still be something stuck in the tyre and could give me another one, after checking the tyre thoroughly to make nothing was still stuck in the tyre I put the new inner tube on, put the wheel back on the bike and loaded my panniers back on.
I wheeled the bike two feet and bang the rear tyre blew! I was sure that there wasn’t anything still in the tyre but obviously there was! Once again I took all the panniers off and wheel, took the inner tube out and this time I could see the puncture, it was a massive hole but at least I knew from where abouts on the tyre it came from so I could check for things still stuck in the tyre, but I still couldn’t find anything, then I noticed that there was a split in the side of the tyre and that’s what caused it!
Luckily I carry spare tyres and after fitting a new tyre and another new inner tube (the whole was to big to fix) and loading everything back on I was on my way.
What with my late start and I must have wasted a good hour or maybe two trying to sort that puncture out I ran out of light and had to stop a bit before I wanted to!
At least I’ve not been going uphill all day today and it’s probably been more downhill than up, been following the Trishuli river down the valley all day.
Watch Garry’s YouTube video cycling along the Trishuli river on the Prithvi highway.
You carry spare tyres? Wow! Is there anything worse than a back wheel puncture – and all that noise going on.
2 spare tyres actually and 4 inner tubes!