First aid for your bicycle: How to use the American tape
First aid for your bicycle: How to use the American tape
At a time of the documentary about the Titan Desert 2016, that Valentí Sanjuan elaborated after his participation this year, one of the corridors repairs a persistent puncture with American tape, something practical, fast and effective to endure the pull of the last kilometers in one of its toughest stages.
It is not an anecdotal image. In fact, in the long journeys and routes that require many hours to spend the bicycle, the American tape can be your best friend in case of a breakdown or mechanical incidence.
An invention of World War II
The American tape It is a great stranger in the field of sport, not many carry it in their backpacks, but those who do it, worship it, venerate it.
As you know it is an adhesive tape formed by a resistant fiber mesh (the same concept of first aid bandages), usually polyethylene, and an extremely strong glue.
If you have used it you know that it has a peculiar quality, it can be broken transversely in a very easy way but it is extremely tensile resistant (that is, longitudinally).
This simple and humble invention was patented by Johnson & Johnson in 1942, during World War II, with the intention that soldiers could protect their moisture ammunition. The American army adopted this type of tape immediately and the uses they were given were almost infinite. Without a doubt, it was the best test field for the product.
Today its distribution reaches all kinds of professional and playful activities, throughout the globe, to the point that annual competitions are already organized that reward the most original utility.
Why you should take it in the backpack
In a burst can be used to cover the interior of the roof. A game can be bound momentarily, enough to finish the route by faster. You can solve a backpack or travel bag break. Strengthen the union of any two pieces. On several days routes it can be very useful if the vivac is torn for any reason. Anyway, it is a powerful multi -purpose ally with which to solve a technical or mechanical problem.
It is one of those supplies that force you to wear a backpack or a small bag of bike. They do not usually come in small sizes and, possibly, a single roll will last your whole sports life. The greatest use you are going to give is to help your classmates in this or that incidence or repair.
For all these cases, it is always advisable to have it nearby, especially when many hours are going to spend on the bicycle through routes full of inconveniences and technical challenges.
