Bank of England Five Pound Note

Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a gert big gash in a lightweight tyre? The Bank of England Five Pound Note is an excellent, robust tyre boot that will get you home, and then you can pop out and spend it on well-deserved cake.

On Sunday's ride, about 8km from Saffron Walden, I hit a patch of completely trashed road. All the tarmac had been scraped off in preparation for resurfacing, leaving the concrete slab base and lots of sharp stone chips. I hit one with the rear wheel, resulting in an instant puncture and a centimetre-long gash in the tyre.

All around me were fields. It looked like a long walk to the nearest village, and a quick look round yielded no roadside debris that I could use as a tyre boot. Lightbulb! I have cash, in the form of one of them new-fangled plastic fivers. I'll try that.

When the bank of England put its new fiver into circulation on 13 September last year, one of the proudly touted advantages of the new plastic note was that it was stronger and more durable than the previous paper version. The Bank said: 'Each new polymer note is expected to last at least 2.5 times longer than the current paper notes. This is because polymer is stronger than paper so the notes can better withstand being repeatedly folded into wallets or scrunched up into pockets.'

Surely a banknote intended to withstand that sort of day to day abuse could also hold my inner tube in place enough to get me home.

I slipped the fiver between the tyre and tube, and held it in place with one hand while I pushed the bead back over the rim with the other. That's a bit tricky, but I can hardly complain that the Bank doesn't supply some sort of adhesive to help keep the cash in place. I might pop a bit of double-sided sticky tape in my ride pack for future disasters though.

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I pumped the tyre up, inflating it to about 70psi – enough to hold the rim off the ground, keep the tyre in shape and keep the fiver in place, but not so hard that it was likely to bulge the note out of the tyre. The new fiver may be durable, but it didn't seen sensible to find out if it could stand being rubbed against the road.

I carried on into Saffron Walden, stopping at the excellent Bicicletta cafe for cake and cappuccino. It's a bike shop too, so I considered buying a replacement tyre. But the fiver had held so far, and it's not like I'm short of spares at home, so I pressed on.

Another 25km and I was home. The tyre was still inflated, and when I took it out the fiver was hardly marked. Not only had it got me home, but I'm confident I could have safely done a much longer ride and it would have held up.

Make sure there's a new fiver in your wallet every time you ride. If you don't need it as a tyre boot, you can always spend it on cake.

Verdict

Brilliantly effective tyre boot that can also be used to buy cake