It did the job. Nice!

So… we got a flat almost immediatly after receiving the cargo bike (Urban Arrow Family) back from the workshop (plus an additional issue with the gears that was new after servicing).

I therefore needed to return the bike because fixing the flat is problematic. I cannot securely and stably raise the back of this bike high enough to do a full back wheel change myself. I can raise it just a little with a pile of books under the frame, which gives me enough lift that I can access the inner tube and patch it but raising it higher removes the contact point of the the drop down stand, such that it becomes wildy unstable.

Previously my bike insurance would cover a pickup due to breakdown but I discovered much to my dissapointment that at some point this changed and is no longer the case. Initially I tried to do an in place patch. This held for a bit but then another part of the tube failed spectacularly with a 2cm+ hole. The problem here is likely either a bad inner tube or something sharp I cannot see between the tyre and rim.

With such a big, unpatchable hole and no pickup service I realised I was in big trouble and needed to get creative. I cut an inner tube in two and tied off the ends. I could then put this into the tyre and pump slightly to expand. A small gap was left (because the tube is shortened by cutting and knotting) that I filled with a bunch of socks. I then remounted the tyre and took the pressure up to two bars.

The bike now rolled pretty nicely and the rim was protected. Almost two hours of pushing later and I had returned the bike to the bike shop. I told the mechanic that he could throw away my ghetto inner tube but I wanted my socks back. 😜

Here is the bike again just before I handed it in for repair. It looks great right? You would never know the back wheel contained a cut inner tube and 3 pairs of socks!