My recent midsummer visit to Norway was disrupted by a flat tyre.

There was I tearing along some beautiful, snow-dusted mountain roads when all of a sudden I felt the bike “go soft” – countersteering was not working properly, there was a distinct lack of responsiveness through the bars, and the rear suspension was suddenly squidgey.

“Bother”, thought I, and stopped to check the bike out, whereupon I found a partially deflated rear tyre with a 3″ cup-head Pozidrive punched clear through it. The next word through my head was rather more rude, but I comforted myself with the thought that I was carrying a Rema Tip-Top Puncture Repair Kit.

What a fool I was.

I extracted the screw and the tyre deflated rapidly and totally – good tip that, the screw definitely makes a half-decent seal. Then, following the instructions completely, I reamed-out the hole to a somewhat bigger size, using the rasp/hook tool provided.

Then I lubed-up one of the rubber ring-plugs with the evil-smelling blue glue, provided. Next: you loop the plug through the tool, and use the tool to plunge the resultant blue snotty mass into the hole to block the hole, wherein you can withdraw the tool and leave the plug in place, right?

Wrong.

As I was prepping the first plug, a Dutch couple on his-n-hers Deauvilles rolled-up to check that I was OK; we took to chatting and he eyed my repair kit dubiously.

“Well, let’s give it a go” said I, cheerily, and slid the plug home into the hole. It would not go. The ring disintegrated upon entry, and fell on the gritty floor.

“Ah. I had one of those. That’s what it did, too.” said the Dutch guy.

“Oh. Bother.”, I said.

Cutting a long story short: it didn’t matter how much I tried to ream-out the hole so that the plug might go into the tyre – and reaming-out a Tourance is not an easy business, let me tell you – no matter what I tried, in the end all three plugs refused entry into the post-virginal tyre, leaving me with a flat, smelling of solvent abuse, and 84km from the nearest town.

This was going to be a rescue job, I could tell.

I phoned BMW rescue in the UK, with surprisingly little fuss gave them my precise location (Thanks, Garmin!) and stripped the luggage from the bike. Several other bikers stopped to check that I was OK, including a KTM-riding guy on his way to shift-work on the fishery, and some Harley riders who were actually driving a car!

BMW/Mondial rang back several times to check how I was getting on, the service was, I have to say, superb.

Perhaps 90 minutes after stopping, Roy arrived with his flatbed and loaded the bike, taking me to the town of Lakselv where I spent the next 3 nights at the Lakselv Hotell, a charming Best-Western-owned establishment where they keep a boat at back, for use as a hot-tub during long winter nights of northern lights.

The hotel food was typical Norwegian – pickled everything, on toast – and the town was quiet, but in all honesty I suspect that was all to the good. Also: there was free wireless Internet access.

The replacement tyre arrived in the post (via light aircraft) two nights later, and was fitted immediately by the local repair-shop guy – Dag – with whom I had gotten to talking. A biker himself, he knew what he was doing, although I believe he overinflated the tyre a bit.

The repair kit? I bagged the remains with the intention of bringing them home to write this article. I have done this, and will now keep the sparklets and dump the remainder.

Next time I’ll try Ultraseal. Caveat emptor.