Bike Station

Scott, Jamie, Reece, Kyle and Louise went to the Bike Station in Edinburgh with Gill and Catherine. We all got the bus into Edinburgh together as the Bike Station is in Waverley train station. We wandered about at Platform 1 for a few minutes looking for the place we would be learning about bikes but had to ask someone as we couldn't see it anywhere. It turned out we were just looking for a white door beside the ticket office. We found the door and had to walk down a couple of flights of stairs so we were actually under the station and there was no daylight.

We met Steve who gave us a tour of the workshop which is based in loads of old tunnels and was filled with bikes in various conditions. They recycle bikes to sell to the public and run groups with schools and groups on bike maintenance and encouraging people to cycle.

After our tour we all had to get overalls on and protect out hands with some barrier cream. Our challenge was then to repair a punctured tyre. He gave each of us a tyre and a puncture repair kit.

Our first job was to release the tyre from the frame so that we could take the tube out, we used these plastic levers to initially release it then you could use your hands and pull the tubing out.

We then pumped the tube up a bit more so we could hear where the air was coming from, Steve suggested holding it near your face so you could feel the air.

When we'd found the hole we marked it with our yellow crayon doing a large cross over it.

Next step was to use the sandpaper from our kit to rub the tube where we'd put our yellow cross, this helps the glue to react better.

We then rubbed the glue onto the sanded area, using about a 10p piece size blob, we blow on the glue so that it starts to set and change colour then we put the patch on and pressed it down with our thumb.

When this was sealed we used the chalk in out kit and rubbed it in the back of our puncture kit box, this made some fine chalk dust which we rubbed over the patch and this sealed everything in and meant the tubing wouldn't stick to the tyre when we put it back in.

We then lined the tubing up with the frame and fed the tubing back into the tyre whilst sealing it to the frame.

Finally we blew our tyres back up and had mastered the art of repairing a puncture.

Steve reminded us that if you are out on a cycle and notice you have a thorn or a pin in your tyre don't remove it unless you have your repair kit with you as it is actually still holding the air in.

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