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If you use a bicycle on a regular basis, sooner or later you will get a slow puncture. These are a little trickier to remedy than the normal kind because finding the hole is not so obvious. Instead you will need to completely remove the inner tube and dunk it a container of water. The bubbles give away the location of the puncture.

I have a flat mate who never patched up punctures but always replaced the whole inner tube. His reason was that in the past the patches leaked or he punctured the inner tube again when levering the tire back on.

Rather than learning through trial and error, follow this list of my best tips for a perfect puncture patch up every time.

Top Tips for Perfect Puncture Repair

Un-clip the brake callipers to ease the process of removing and fitting the wheel.

Don’t wrestle with your tire. Use a small amount of washing up liquid with tire removing levers to help the tire slide on or off very easily. This also helps prevent inner tube pinching.

Leave the glue to dry for 5 mins, or until its touch dry, before applying the patch.

Use a vice or clamp to apply pressure on the patch for 5 mins to make a strong bond.

Don’t pump the inner tube up too much before putting back in the tire – this will only cause patches to pop off.

Make sure your inner tube doesn’t get pinched when levering the tire on and off.

Tim Brennan is the author of the PiciFix.com website. For time-saving, stress free fixes every time, please see my FREE video guide to repairing punctures at: http://www.picifix.com/bicycle/repairing-punctured-tires.html