Buggy punctures

[mumofone]

Grr just having a rant! I seem to be forever getting punctures in my buggy, anyone else?!

[AliceK]

None since I filled them with slime. Touch wood it seems to have done the trick

xx

[mumofone]

None since I filled them with slime. Touch wood it seems to have done the trick xx

With slime??

[JCrakers]

Tyre slime, you can get it from Halfords or maybe other places. Its green and you put it into the tyre. It then fills the hole

I did have slime in mine but now have a new set of tyres. I didn't put slime in and had a puncture this morning on my double. I was so lucky that I had a baby and two good walkers otherwise I would have been stuck. So took my single buggy on school run.

I'm taking mine to Halfords shortly to get it repaired as I can never do it properly at home

[loocyloo]

I had mine filled with ride in lawn mower slime! It has bigger chunks in it to block holes :-) I had it done at local ride on mower dealer!

[bunyip]

I recently gave up the fight and switched from my beloved T3 jogger with pneumatic tyres for a double with solid wheels, for this very reason.

Don't get me wrong: slime is very good. It's just not 100% effective. It counteracts a lot of punctures, but it doesn't make the tubes last forever. In any case, I often found I'd have to push the buggy home on flat tyres and re-inflate them to get the slime to do its work.

I think I must've used a couple of sets of slimed inner tubes. The nice man at my cycle shop would do the 'sliming' for me, as I always struggled with the valves doing it myself. He said he'd regularly seen slimed cycle inner tubes that had dozens of old punctures before they finally gave up the ghost. So if you only have occasional flats, then it should work for you.

Round my way we seem to get a lot of broken glass, plus a lot of thorns as the hedgerows are regularly cut without being properly cleared. The LA makes little effort to clear glass. They can leave broken glass on the pavement for a full week after it has been reported and still not be liable for claims.

The net result was that I kept having to cross the road just to avoid known 'puncture black spots'; avoided my favourite country walks for weeks after the hedge-cutting; and got to the point where I was worrying myself stupid that I might render myself pushchair-less every time I went out. So the T3 had to give way to a new solid-wheeled Mini-City in the end.

[mumofone]

I recently gave up the fight and switched from my beloved T3 jogger with pneumatic tyres for a double with solid wheels, for this very reason.

Don't get me wrong: slime is very good. It's just not 100% effective. It counteracts a lot of punctures, but it doesn't make the tubes last forever. In any case, I often found I'd have to push the buggy home on flat tyres and re-inflate them to get the slime to do its work.

I think I must've used a couple of sets of slimed inner tubes. The nice man at my cycle shop would do the 'sliming' for me, as I always struggled with the valves doing it myself. He said he'd regularly seen slimed cycle inner tubes that had dozens of old punctures before they finally gave up the ghost. So if you only have occasional flats, then it should work for you.

Round my way we seem to get a lot of broken glass, plus a lot of thorns as the hedgerows are regularly cut without being properly cleared. The LA makes little effort to clear glass. They can leave broken glass on the pavement for a full week after it has been reported and still not be liable for claims.

The net result was that I kept having to cross the road just to avoid known 'puncture black spots'; avoided my favourite country walks for weeks after the hedge-cutting; and got to the point where I was worrying myself stupid that I might render myself pushchair-less every time I went out. So the T3 had to give way to a new solid-wheeled Mini-City in the end.

This is where Im at now - thinking I need to get a solid wheeled buggy though i dont really want to as i love the ride of a buggy with pneumatic tyres. We have loads of brambles round here which i think are doing it, its so frustrating. Im worried that i'll be buggy-less one day too. Do you use a double buggy ever bunyip or just a single?

[mumofone]

Tyre slime, you can get it from Halfords or maybe other places. Its green and you put it into the tyre. It then fills the hole

I did have slime in mine but now have a new set of tyres. I didn't put slime in and had a puncture this morning on my double. I was so lucky that I had a baby and two good walkers otherwise I would have been stuck. So took my single buggy on school run.

I'm taking mine to Halfords shortly to get it repaired as I can never do it properly at home

wow ive never heard of this before....

[Simona]

My Phil&Teds had numerous punctures....but it was usually the outer chamber not the inner one where the problem was....so filling it with anything would not have helped.

Some tyres also help with manoeuvre...they make buggies much lighter to push considering the weight some carry.

[bunyip]

This is where Im at now - thinking I need to get a solid wheeled buggy though i dont really want to as i love the ride of a buggy with pneumatic tyres. We have loads of brambles round here which i think are doing it, its so frustrating. Im worried that i'll be buggy-less one day too. Do you use a double buggy ever bunyip or just a single?

I use a double most of the time. It's not that I always have two children in it, but it's often worth having the space of the empty seat for schoolbags or shopping. Often it's just the case that I don't like constantly being in and out of the storage area to swap double for single and back again*, especially this time of year what with all the mud on the wheels.

I also have two singles. When we have three non-mobile children I push the double and Mrs bunyip has the single. We occasionally use a single each. This can be easier than a double if we're using buses. It's also useful if we're going to end up going different ways: eg. when we come back from toddler group, I can take one child off for his lunchtime drop-off with granny and Mrs B takes the other straight to ours for lunch. Not always practical, as one of the singles is a bottom-of-the-range stroller with no rain cover, etc.


*My reluctance to keep putting one pushchair away and get out another is a bit of a hangover from when I had the T3. It was just too big to store, even folded up, in our under-stairs storage space, so it stayed up (in the kitchen when wet, and mercifully in the garden in summer.) One bonus of getting rid of it is we can find the kitchen again, though it was a super pushchair and, like you say, a dream to push with those pneumatic tyres. It even coped with snow, no problem. I initially bought it to use as a necessity, to use as a 3-seater, only to be stitched up like a kipper by the weird horror-show of a mum who insisted she wanted me to look after her two children then gave notice very soon after starting. (It's a very long story, she was weird. I never got to the bottom of what happened and why. It was also a very bad time for me for other reasons: probably my all-time CMing low point.)

In the end, the reason for having the T3 just wasn't there, but it did serve us well for some time. I couldn't bear to sell it, thinking someone would not look after it properly or sell it on again for a quick profit. So I just gave it to a friend of a friend who is just setting up as a CM. I know she'll need it and look after it, and setting up is so expensive it just helps a bit with keeping down the costs.

[mumofone]

My Phil&Teds had numerous punctures....but it was usually the outer chamber not the inner one where the problem was....so filling it with anything would not have helped. Some tyres also help with manoeuvre...they make buggies much lighter to push considering the weight some carry.

How did you deal with all the punctures Simona? Just fix them yourself? My poor DP does all mine and he's getting fed up!!

[mama2three]

I get punctures too , downside of spending so much time in the forest. I have managed to acquire spare wheels for my buggies - some from ebay and some from an old buggy that wore out and needed replacing - it went to the tip but I kept the wheels! I keep them pumped up and it takes a second to swap one over . My t3 is also the worst culprit , so when I use that I stick one of the spares in the basket so I can even change it on the move. Just bought myself a new nipper single so will watch out for spare wheel for that one too !

[Dragonfly]

I do that mama2three!! from my previous buggy.

[mumofone]

I get punctures too , downside of spending so much time in the forest. I have managed to acquire spare wheels for my buggies - some from ebay and some from an old buggy that wore out and needed replacing - it went to the tip but I kept the wheels! I keep them pumped up and it takes a second to swap one over . My t3 is also the worst culprit , so when I use that I stick one of the spares in the basket so I can even change it on the move. Just bought myself a new nipper single so will watch out for spare wheel for that one too !

Ooh that's a good idea, I might start doing this :-) So scared of getting a flat on the go...what would anyone even do in this situation?!

[Simona]

How did you deal with all the punctures Simona? Just fix them yourself? My poor DP does all mine and he's getting fed up!!

Well...luckily for me there is a bike shop 2 mins walk from my house
The guy would change the inner chamber (if that is its name?), deal with the puncture and ...usually. ...reflate all the tyres for as little as £5 which went straight into my expenses under 'maintenance'

I also have a tyre pump so I could inflate the tyres myself...it is not big and often I carried it in the buggy basket

I always took the children with me so they would watch and get to learn about UTW....a bonus!

[AliceK]

Ooh that's a good idea, I might start doing this :-) So scared of getting a flat on the go...what would anyone even do in this situation?!

I got one on polling day. I had walked with 2 LO's in the double buggy to the polling station and as I started to walk back I realised the buggy was SO heavy and virtually impossible to push - flat wheel . Took me ages to get back home, trying to push the buggy and keep as much weight as possible on the good wheel. That was the final straw for me and that's when I got the slime.

xxxx

[bunyip]

Ooh that's a good idea, I might start doing this :-) So scared of getting a flat on the go...what would anyone even do in this situation?!

I used to just get home as quickly as possible, pretty much pushing it home on the rims. Simona's pump tip is a good one and can be enough to get home with a 'slow' puncture if the tube isn't too badly pierced.

I was lucky in a sense with the bike shop. It wasn't close, but the owner has to drive past my house on his journey to work. So if I was in a real fix, he'd do a pick-up and delivery service if I just took the wheels off for him.

I'm still jealous, Simona. There were always quite a few good cycle shops around your way. Ironically, I rarely got puncture in my West London days. Now I live in the outback, miles from a cycle shop, and I get loads.

[Simona]

I used to just get home as quickly as possible, pretty much pushing it home on the rims. Simona's pump tip is a good one and can be enough to get home with a 'slow' puncture if the tube isn't too badly pierced.

I was lucky in a sense with the bike shop. It wasn't close, but the owner has to drive past my house on his journey to work. So if I was in a real fix, he'd do a pick-up and delivery service if I just took the wheels off for him.

I'm still jealous, Simona. There were always quite a few good cycle shops around your way. Ironically, I rarely got puncture in my West London days. Now I live in the outback, miles from a cycle shop, and I get loads.

I was so lucky....so many bike shops within walking distance and somehow....always so keen to help children in distress unable to get a ride!
I knackered my right thumb pushing my Phil&Teds with a puncture ....ended up with my arm in a sling....and my back went too on the right side ... Like the hunchback of Notre Dame!

[bunyip]

Just 'thinking outside the box' for a minute: why do we use push-chairs anyway?

Donkeys, horses, camels, elephants across the planet make a living out of providing a means of propulsion for us supposedly 'higher' intelligent beings. But I've never seen a donkey pushing a cart.