Vittoria Pit Stop
By James Sharp

Fixing a flat is one of my least favorite things to do, especially while riding. Off road, I use tubeless tires, and they have all but eliminated flats for me. On the road, that’s not an option. Sure, there are things you can do to minimize the aggravation, run tires with flat protection built in, use CO2 inflators to speed up that process, swap tubes and patch the flat at home--this one requires that you actually fix the flat, something that I don’t do nearly often enough since at the moment I have 5 road tubes needing patches--but inevitably you still have to stop, pull the tire off and the tube out, find the cause of the flat and repair it. This task is worse if you run tubular tires. Then you have to pull the tire off, open the casing, repair the tube, sew the casing back together, clean the rim and re-glue the tire to the rim. Not fast and definitely not convenient. Vittoria thinks that they can help with all this mess. They recently introduced Pit Stop, a sealant and inflator in one.

On paper, Vittoria’s Pit Stop looks great! It claims to inflate a tubular to 94psi, and a clincher to 87psi--probably not the pressure you are running, but enough to finish a ride or race. The latex based sealant is good for 3 months in the tube, so it’ll fix your current flat and prevent new flats for up to three months. The can weighs 70g and will add a mere 18g to the repaired tube. The nozzle works for both Presta and Schrader valves without an adaptor. Reading over that list, what’s not to love?

To use the Pit Stop, you remove what caused the flat--piece of glass, staple, finishing nail, etc.--rotate the tire so the valve is at the top of the wheel, line up the nozzle on the valve and push hard. Sealant and it’s propellant will shoot into the tube and the foaming latex will fill the tube and seal the puncture--if all goes well--and you’ll be on your way. It does take the sealant a few kilometers to fully seal the tube, so get riding immediately! This isn’t something you’d use in the garage and then hang your bike up.

My experience was about 50% successful. BikeMine sent me two cans of the stuff, and I couldn’t wait for a flat. The first chance I got was on a flat caused by a shard of metal. This would have been a hole about the size that a pushpin would leave. True to its word, the latex filled the tube, spilling out of, and sealing, the hole. If I didn’t know where the hole was before, I did after I used the Pit Stop. This hole was sealed, mostly--it actually became a slow leak after a few days. If the objective was to finish a ride or race, the Pit Stop did its job. If the objective was to permanently fix the flat, then it sort of did its job, kind of... maybe. The second opportunity came when I was riding with a fellow editor here at GearReview.com. He flatted, I whipped out the second can of Pit Stop and proclaimed that we’d be on the road in no time. Guess what, it didn’t work, and we weren’t. The real problem, I believe, was we didn’t take a close look at the hole. This hole was just too big, I think, since it was a slit about a quarter inch long. The problem, was that after attempting to use the Pit Stop, the tube was coated with the latex to an extent that we didn’t feel a patch would take--and we certainly weren’t going to try. In went another tube and our furious pumping with a mini-mini-pump began.

Summary: Vittoria’s Pit Stop retails for $10. While, I believe the product to be a worthy addition to any saddle pack, I wouldn’t recommend it as the only repair option you carry with you. In the right situation, it’ll get you back on the road in under a minute, but if the hole is too big, you better have a back up. One other use, however, would be to fill your tube using the Pit Stop before the big event, it just might keep you from flatting in the first place.

James Sharp is a contributing editor for GearReview.com; more of his ramblings and a look at upcoming reviews can be found at his blog -- Lactic Acid Threshold.

For more information, contact:
BikeMine
1639 West Sheridan Ave.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73106
Phone: 1-800-223-3207
Email: req@bikemine.com
www.bikemine.com