AN INNER TUBE WITH TWO HOLES !

This being more commonly known as 'having a b----- puncture' - a 'feature' of my Lanchester LA 10 that became apparent shortly after purchase.

Clearly the unauthorised hole was very small, as it took days rather than minutes or hours for the tyre to look unhappy, but in due course what had initially been a low priority job, came to the top of my list.

Decision time! Who was going to do the job, myself, or our local friendly tyre shop?

Remembering struggles with bicycle punctures in the dim and distant past, I was tempted to say "no contest", but on the other hand there was the feeling that the job might not even be straightforward for the tyre shop (old-fashioned sized tyres - plus old-fashioned sized inner tubes that wouldn't be in stock if needed) and  I decided that anyway, it could be character building to do it myself.

The big 'plus' was, of course, that this would be taking place at home  - rather than on some narrow, little used road, at dusk, in the rain.

In time honoured tradition, the first step was to take off the valve cap and have a good 'spit' to wet the end of the valve, to check whether a bubble appeared, in case the problem stemmed merely from the valve itself.

No bubble - so battle commenced with a shopping trip to purchase all those tools, and bits and pieces needed to do the job, which couldn't be identified from groping about in the dark recesses of my garage.

Regretfully, none of my valve caps were the sort with two proggy bits on top for loosening off the valve, so a suitable valve removal tool was needed, and it seemed prudent to buy replacement valves at the same time, even though the existing one had seemed okay.

This was when I discovered that there were two different lengths of valve available. However, as these were inexpensive, I bought a pack of each (as you will see from the picture) to check against the old valve which I had not yet seen.

Tyre levers, and a puncture repair outfit, completed the known requirements - and so to work!