How to repair bike wheel?

[whethergirl]

Hi, can anyone help, no man about the house and I'm pretty useless! My ds bike front wheel seems to be punctured. It went down once before, neighbour pumped it up but it soon deflated again so presuming it's actually punctured. What do I do about it??!

You will need a puncture repair kit with little spanner-y things and a bucket of water.

Take whole wheel off bike.

Make sure that the tyre is is completely deflated.

Ease the tyre off using the spanner-y things. You wedge one under, clip it to the spoke. Then repeat a couple of spokes around. The tire will start to come off over the lip of the wheel rim. Take tire off.

Remove inner tube, taking care to ease the valve through the hole in the rim. Now inflate inner tube and systematically put in the bucket of water. Air bubbles will come out of hole. Use chalk (in kit) to mark the place. Repeat - you may have more than one puncture.

Dry around the puncture and follow instructions for applying the "plaster" in your kit.

Place inner tube back on wheel. Theb comes the tricky bit..put the tyre back on. Best to put on side inside the rim of wheel first and then do other side. You then get to putting on the last bit - this will be stretched over the rim. Take the spannery things to shove and hold in place. Be careful not to pinch the inner tube.

Then inflate!

Should your bubbles come out of the valve when in water then valve is shot and you will need new inner tube. Size and spec will be on the wheel rim.

Good luck!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXnTqP7Nd_o

This is a good demo

Wow claricebeansmum, thank you so much for that. Didn't realise it would be such an ordeal though, I mean the bike only cost £40 and he has only been riding it a few months! I hope this isn't the kind of thing to happen regularly, or maybe we were just unlucky.

Thanks again for all your advice, I'll defo watch the you tube cilp too, never thought to look on there xx