The Jackal's first Tubular repair

Managed to squeeze some time in the afternoon to do this....couple of steps involved.

1. Find the Leak

To find the leak, first inflate the tires up and slowly rotate it into a small bucket of water. In my case I it was a pinhole puncture at the tire itself. I marked it up and wipe the tire dry.

2. Opening up the Sucker

Now I'm not sure why it seems so easy in those videos and forums but I found this a bitch to do! The toughest part by far is the removal of the mounting strip (which cover the stitches). It must have taken me like 15mins just to open up just enough for me to slit the stitches. From where I marked, I must have opened 1.5 inch in length. Remove the threads around the intended area.

3. Disemboweling the Tubular

Ok, now pull out the tube from the hole just made. I was inspecting the latex tube for a hole but could not find any...so I pumped it up a little and placed the tube in the tub of water to locate the leak. It was a really tiny pin hole! I marked it.

4. Patch it up

Standard patch up applies. Google it!

5. Stitching up the wound

I went downstairs and bought myself an entire needle kit (SGD0.9) but I really only wanted the circular needle. For thread, I used standard dental floss, minty and waxed. Its really strong. Stitch up the wound as best as I could (actually, I'm pretty good at stitching for guy!). With the right tools, this was easy peasy. After that, I used the patch glue to stich the mounting strip back onto the tire.

Well, I pumped it up to 100PSI and an hour on, its still ok...lets see how long it holds!

Check out my 'professional' stitching! :)