ABC Quick Check FAIL

Arriving Back Home, the Tire Still Had Air. The Presta Valve was Still Broken.
I Guess Those Little Screws Don't Replace Themselves. OOPS!

In bike school, they teach you the "ABC Quick Check." In this case, the "A" means you are supposed to make sure your AIR is at the proper pressure in the tire before you gaily go riding off to work or wherever else you are riding.

As is my habit, first thing every Monday morning, I attach my floor pump to each of the tires and deliver the four to six strokes needed to bring each tire back to its target starting pressure. I pump the rear tire up to 110psi and the front up to 100psi. It's why the rear tire now has about 6000 miles on it, while the front tire is barely broken in at 2000 miles.

While I don't necessarily agree with my instructor Richard's assertion that "Presta is Besta," Presta valves DO look a little snazzier. Well, they do unless you happen to bend the valve core screw a bit with the pump and then snap it off completely when you try to straighten it back. There's a first time for everything. While I entitled this post "ABC Quick Check FAIL," there are a number of other titles that might be much more apropos. However, "Steve Butchers a Perfectly Good Tube Because He Can be an Uncoordinated Klutz Sometimes" isn't very catchy.

AFTER this little episode, I screwed the cap back on and rode the tire to work and back home with no further incident. In case you think I'm a TOTAL idiot, I do have a spare tube, and I took the precaution of stopping off at the LBS on the way home to purchase a new tube. While this tube might last a month or more before becoming dangerously prone to a pinch flat (symptomatic of tire pressure that's simply just too low), I'd rather not run this particular tube out to the bitter end. On the other hand, I'm sure it'll wait until the weekend. It WOULD be nice if the inner valve were replaceable on a Presta valve. Of course, you're reading a post from a serial "ABC" failure, so we KNOW your judgment might be open to question...

What a Presta Valve SHOULD Look Like
From Wikipedia