79pmooney

There's Murphy's Law. If you ride this route long enough, there will come a day when you have more flats than you have tubes. And, now we have road hazards that weren't there 40 years ago that can cause multiple flats in multiple tubes. The tiny steel wire of radial and truck tires. (I don't know where they actually come from, but I've seen enough for a lifetime, all since the mid '80s. Never happened in the '70s when I was riding very high mileage years.) Those wire pieces can be shorter than the thickness of your tread and tire casing, making them and the hole in the tire near invisible. But if you don't remove it, it WILL cause anther flat. Maybe that ride. If not, on another ride later.

That's also a good reason to patch tires on the road, not swap tubes. That patch tells you exactly where the issue is on your tire. (Well, there or the same number of spokes from the valve in the opposite direction.) And when two patches appear in the same place you KNOW there's a tire issue that has to be found. (Or again, opposite the valve - trick - grab the valve and pull the tube away, If two patches align, they are probably the same issue. You just turned the tube around when you put it back in after patching the first).

Oh, and a neat tool for removing those wire hairs. Leatherman multi-tools. Their excellent pliers have a very squared almost needlenose tip. Find the wire, open the pliers a touch around it and push to indent the tire. Close the pliers, They grab nearly every time. You want "for sure". Get the Leatherman. And be blessed with a really good tool that will serve you well off the bike too. (Mine is like new. My sis gave it to me in the '80s.)

Edit: Finding those tire wires is like finding a pot of gold in a huge field of very high grass. But if the soothsayer tells you that the gold will be right under a hovering crow .. well that makes it far easier to find! That patch is your crow.

Ben