E-Bikes & Bikes Customised to You
Hey, everyone. Peter here at Sixthreezero Bikes. You're out on a ride and you got a flat, and you weren't prepared. Your options are limited, but let me see if I can help you out.
We have another video about how to prevent flats, and also what to do when you get a flat and what to bring with you on a bike so that you can deal with a flat. However, if you've left the house unprepared and you have gotten a flat, that's a harder situation. There are a few things you can do, and then there are also some other things that you should know.
First of all, if you're near a bike shop, obviously, you can go there, and they'll help you out. They can fix your flat, or maybe they can sell you some things if you want to do it on your own. With an E-bike, especially with the rear wheel, it's a little tougher. It's not that hard. We have another video, too, on how to change out the tube on the rear wheel of an E-bike.
Now, if it is flat, you really don't really want to ride it, and so, if you're far from home, that could be rough. We'll get into that later. Let me first talk about what you can do to maybe fix it. You may not be next to a... You may not be near a bike store. There is a possibility that you can find a product like this one. I'll have the Nate come up here in a moment. There are a few different products, and some will help you and some won't, so I want to make sure that we direct you in the right direction. If you can find something like this, Casite Tire Repair, and it actually has air highlighted in the repair, which is cool because this one actually has the ability to also not only fix the puncture but can also fill up your tire with air.
There are other products that you could fill your tire with that can help you preventatively, but then you have to have air from some other source. It doesn't come from the can, so you have to be very careful. It's possible to find these at auto supply stores. We just tested it on a bike tire. Even though it's made for a car-size tire, it will work on a bike. However, there's a lot more stuff in here than a bike tire can hold. When you pull it off, there's going to be foam and stuff that explodes everywhere, so you might want to wear eye protection. I've seen that recommended, or watch out for your clothes and stuff because, when you yank this off the tire, stuff's going to go everywhere. However, it will inflate your tire. As far as fixing your puncture, I'm not sure. There are some good videos I've seen that have tested that.
Anyway, you want to make sure that you look for a product that will inflate your tire unlike, say, this one. This product is Slime, which is excellent, and we'll have Nate come up here again, too. This one you can only do ahead of time and fill up the tube, and then you fill-up the tire with a compressor or with your pump or something.
I want to give you a couple of words of caution. First of all, that's probably your best option, if you could go to an auto repair or an auto supply shop, auto parts store like AutoZone or Rileys or whatever. Also, there are some hardware stores. Lowe's may have it or Home Depot. I checked at Target. I didn't see any of these products there, so I'm not sure about that. Maybe Walmart, but it is possible, but you want to find one that not only will fix the puncture but also has air in it because I'm talking to a person who has just gone out and ridden for... They're out four or five miles. They haven't brought a pump or a tube or a patch equipment or any of those flat prevention, and they need some sort of emergency repair. Hopefully, you're near a spot where you can find that, a product like that.
Next, don't ride your bike flat. I know it may be a really long walk home. You may need to call somebody to come to pick you up, but, if you ride your bike flat, especially the rear one, you can not only damage the tire, the tire is not that expensive, but you can damage the tire. Of course, the tube is going to be completely gone, but you'll damage the tire, which means you'll have to buy a new tire. If you start riding on the rim, you're going to have to buy a whole new wheel and... or, at minimum, a rim and have the wheel rebuilt around your motor. If you do that, it's going to be pretty expensive because buying a... If your rear wheel is hub-driven and has a hub drive motor, you got to buy the whole darn thing again, so highly recommended that you don't ride the bike home. You're just going to have to walk or give someone a call.
Anyway, so, like I said at the beginning, your options are pretty limited if you haven't done any sort of prevention or brought a repair equipment with you. Probably, the best you can do is find something like this Casite Tire Repair here, which will... This is supposed to fix punctures and then will also inflate the tire. Again, because made for cars... I'm going through puberty again. It's made for cars. There's a lot more foam in here than you need for a bicycle tire.
Well, Nate, why don't you come up here? I'll just show a couple of examples of this, of the merchandise that's available. This is the one that I found that will fix the puncture and then also inflate your tire. Really easy to use. You just put it onto the valve here, and then you depressed the little button right here. When you remove it from the valve, it's going to make a mess, so get ready. There's going to be this sticky stuff that's going to explode everywhere. However, from what we saw, it inflated to about 36 pounds, which is really good pressure, and did not overinflate our tire. I was wondering if an item like this that has so much capacity to fill up a car tire would have too much air in it and maybe the pressure was too high that might blow up the bicycle tire, but it didn't.
Okay, so there are a lot of other videos out there, some very good ones, where they test the different sorts of products that are out there. One that I saw... and I have nothing for or against any of these products in particular. I have nothing, no relationship with them. In the one video I did watch, Fix-a-Flat did not work at all, and the fellow tried it four times, and he tried four different products. He tried FlatOut. He tried Slime. He tried Fix-a-Flat and then something else. The other three worked great. Fix-a-Flat didn't work at all. I don't know. It says trusted since 1970. If you want to find this and use it, you can. Yeah, so this one is supposed to also fill up your tire as well, so this can... will inflate your tire. Whether it will fix your puncture, I don't know, but this may get you out of jam. You may end up buying a bottle of this and then a bottle of something else, but, again, if you're out there and you haven't prepared then, yeah, it's a rough situation.
What's not going to help you, since you don't have any way to inflate your tire, is something like this Slime bottle or this Slime bottle here. Both of these will require you to inflate the tire externally with some other, with a pump or a compressor.
That brings me to the last point. It is don't ever, ever, ever go to a gas station and inflate your tire. The air on those compressors generally comes out really fast because a car tire holds a lot more air and, before you even know it, you'll blow your tire or blow your tube. It's just way too much force, too much air, so never fill up your tire at a gas station. I don't know if people have done that successfully. I've only heard bad stories, but I've also never done it myself either because I don't want to have a tire blow up in my face.
Okay. You may be in a tricky situation if you're away from home and haven't brought equipment with you or done other flat prevention, so I hope that this video helps get you home. I truly hope that was helpful for you. If you liked it, please do like it and hit subscribe. It helps grow our channel. If you need any help at all, please contact us. You can call us at 310-982-2877 or email us at theteam@sixthreezero.com. Remember, sixthreezero is spelled out, S-I-X-T-H-R-E-E-Z-E-R-O, theteam@sixthreezero.com. Thanks.
