squirtdad

put bucks that you will flat soon....mostly because you have challenged the demons of flat tires, the ying/yang of tires and in general thumbed your nose at flat tire Karma

good luck and I hope it does not rub off

independent thinking: 2 areas I worry about Jinxs Flat tires and Global Maintenance events when we bring thousands of engineers down world wide

Senrab62 

I haven't flatted in years now. I ride a mixture of tires on varying surfaces. I have had fragile tires never flat, and have had catastrophic failures on gatorskins (glass shard). By typing this, I will now flat on every ride for the next month 😂

Considering I ride gravel, path, road, and urban regularly enough I don't see much of a difference, although I tend to pick up cuts most regularly on gravel. I'm a big man. As long as my pressures are sufficient for my weight and the tire weight I am usually good to go. I feel like modern tires are pretty good. I also don't ride in areas with goat heads or anything like that, so perhaps I am also lucky. Don't know that it makes a difference, but 75-90% of my miles are fixed gear.

canklecat

From 2017-mid 2021 I switched to mostly thin, lightweight tires like the Soma Supple Vitesse SL with latex tubes on my road bikes. My heavy duty tires were Continental Grand Prix Classic, a really nice and remarkably supple skinwall with translucent root beer colored sidewalls, and a 1980s style raised center rib for extra pleasure... I mean wear and puncture resistance. I was trying to snag a few Strava KOMs, which I never managed, but did crack a few top tens... for awhile. Eventually younger, stronger riders pushed me off the list, as it should be. If a 60something year old man has a KOM or top ten on any worthwhile segment, it's because our competition are folks on comfort hybrids and kids on Big Wheels.

Back then I got maybe two or three puncture flats a year, averaging about 6,000 miles a year. Not bad. And the ride was really nice, especially with latex tubes. I also had a few non-puncture flats, mostly operator error: failing to prep the wheels properly for latex tubes. Vittoria and Silca (which sells relabeled Vitorria tubes) recommended tubeless tape to prep rims for latex. I was too impatient to wait for that and used some Schwalbe high pressure plastic rim tape instead which I already had. It did hold up for awhile, about a year. But the pre-punched hole for the valve was slightly oversized, just enough for the latex to extrude into the valve cutout hole. Latex tubes are basically a patchwork of overlapped and glued segments at the base of the valve stem and need more support than that rim strip could offer. So that's where the tubes failed.

Anyway, I got sick in autumn 2021, COVID-like symptoms although no specific confirmation. Knocked me out for months and I never did fully recover. For the past year I've been puttering around at about 14 mph, way down from my 18-20 mph average pre-illness. I don't see myself improving enough to challenge for any Strava top tens again. But it was fun while it lasted.

I didn't see any reason to continue riding on fairly delicate tires and tubes so I've switched back to butyl tubes and Continental Ultra Sport 2 and 3. I don't think I've ever had a puncture flat with Conti Ultra Sport of any kind, yet they don't feel like heavy, sluggish lead filled garden hose like some puncture resistant tires. Only downside to Ultra Sport tires is they're such a tight fit I need to carry a Kool Stop bead jack in case I do need to fix a flat on the road. With my arthritic hands I can't pop a tight tire across a rim anymore. That KS bead jack weighs very little so I just stuff it into a jersey pocket. I've used it a time or two to help other folks with flats on group rides.

P!N20

I voted other. These are the tyres you use:

iab

I will not mock the cycling gods. After writing this I will say 20 hail campagnolo to out lady of the dura ace as an act of contrition.

cyccommute 

I had a 16d nail go through my tire and come out on the other side on the south side of Boreas Pass. The pass is an old railbed but it is steeper than most so it is really fast…the Denver, South Park and Pacific wasn’t all that good at calculating grade and they often flirted with the limits of grade for trains. I happened to pick up the nail at the exactly the bottom of a hill that goes around an old collapsed section. On the same ride, someone else wore a hole in their tire from a brake drag.

C9H13N 

The last flat I got was June 5th. I was in my garage, about to start my commute. Valve stem failure. The best place to flat.

Kobe 

My last flat was on a charity ride in September 2022. I really appreciate the well meaning " Do you need a hand?"s, but 20 or 30 no thank you's later I was ready to scream it.

79pmooney

I came back to this thread to say exactly that!

canklecat

Didn't anyone stop to supervise your flat repair? If two or three people don't stop to observe, point at stuff on your bike and grunt, you need a better class of group ride strangers.

nlerner

DIdn't @rhm start a thread to track flats?

MooneyBloke

Agree loudly. My townie has 28mm Gatorskins, and I've patched tubes on that more than a few times. I think on a couple of occasions, it's been snake bites from some very crappy roads in my little part of the world.

Kabuki12

Other! You’re just too darn lucky. I strongly dislike you (I’m jealous and kidding)and want whatever Kool Aid you are drinking. I get more flats than I care to count , so I don’t. At least I know that my frame pump works and my patch kit is in good order.

SurferRosa

I don't know, but I completed a detailed spreadsheet with all my flats since 2019:







Also, I'm sad to see you haven't voted yet ... even though I also haven't voted yet. I'm still considering all my options.



​​​​​

nlerner

I figured it was rigged.

ThermionicScott 

Are you thinking of this one by @Essthreetee? https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...lat-tires.html

You might be forgiven for thinking it was @rhm's thread by how much he contributed to it.

rhm

I heard that!
I kinda miss contributing to that thread. I haven't had the time to ride much lately.

Oh, andSurferRosa , as was mentioned... you are now doomed to a nasty spate of flats. I'm sorry, i wouldn't wish it on anyone. If you don't believe me, see the thread above; for a while that thread became my official blog.

SurferRosa

I made it 4.5 years, folks!



Picked up that thumbtack on my way home today, just a couple miles out. Knew what it was, didn't pull it out, and made it home, no prob.

Good luck? Good karma? As long as it's all good...

The Golden Boy 

I last flatted on 11 July 2020.

But I have probably ridden much fewer miles than you in that time frame.

You can see the flatted rear:

720 7 11 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

P!N20

Wheel's on backwards.

Chuck M 

Good job centering it in the tire. If you are going to flat, at least make it look good.

downtube42

I'm a connoisseur of escaping air.

You have your roadside flats, 1am brake track failure explosions in the garage, mystery slow leaks, sidewall cuts on pristine pave, 3mm long radial tire shards that protrude 0.5mm through the tire only when rolling, self inflicted secondary flats, ballooning tire sidewall that goes thump thump thump boom flats, drywall screws, curved nails that enter the center tread and exit the sidewall, one hundred tiny glass shards picked up in one moment, thorns, volcanic rock, magical jumping expansion joint metal bit that flatted me at 2am just 1/2 mile from my hotel.

I've flatted on the Oregon coast, outside Villaines, France, in Kentucky, Indiana, Washington, west Texas, Ohio, in the middle of the 205 bridge over the Columbia River, on the Longview bridge over the Columbia river (a trend?). I've flatted in the snow, in the desert heat, in a driving rainstorm. I've flatted on a cyclocross race, on brevets, commutes, and JRA. I've flatted on a road bike, a mountain bike, a tandem, a fixie, and a unicycle. I've flatted on a steel bike, an aluminum (excuse me, alloy) bike, and a carbon bike. Why do we say alloy, anyway?

On day two of a 600k in extremely rural Kentucky, I flatted four times. On the fourth instance I was so exasperated trying to find the offending bit, I literally turned my clincher tire inside out. Didn't find a thing, and getting that tire back right-side out was a bear. Another day 2 Kentucky 600k (a trend?), the wind was so strong it blew my flat repair kit across the road, where I had to pick the important bits out of the grass.

At this very moment, my rando bike has a tubeless plug from a puncture that occurred on my October 200k (dead center on the tread), and my fixie commuter has a fresh patch from a radial tire shard.

In my youth when I rode hours and far more miles away from home than my mother ever knew, carrying nothing but a water bottle and a couple dollars, on rural Indiana gravel roads, on 70's Schwinn Approved tires, I never had a flat. Why is that?

So all y'all with no flats fearing the flat gods, no worries. I got you covered.

edit: after posting I noticed my profile pic, which is on the Oregon Coast. The rear tire at that beautiful moment is a Bontrager Hardcase, not the brand spanking new GP5000 I installed before the Seattle depart. Care to guess why?

79pmooney

Vittoria Corsa G+? 28c? Love those tires! Did 30 miles on the tubulars this afternoon. (That I put on for the 2022 Cycle Oregon. Put goatheads into each that ride and got shots of sealant. Topped off each twice. Rear;s about half way through its center ribs.)

One of my first rides after I went back to tubulars summer of '22 I ran over a roofing nail. It went through my brand new Conti Giro from tread to base tape then through the dished rim surface. Brand new NOS CX30 rim. Nailed. (And I was riding sober and easy so I wasn't even hammered.) Good thing - I rode far enough on those Contis to know I didn't like them.

tremolo1965

I flatted twice this summer, July. Lost an expensive tubular (FMB) on the rear, then the spare I stuck on there let go..

I’ll try and fix the FMB but it’s been replaced with a Panaracer practice. New FMBs will probably go on in Spring..

albrt 

On GOBA this year (the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure) somebody got a flat from a 2022 GOBA lapel pin.

It's amazing how the flats go in streaks. I put 1.5" Paselas on an old Hard Rock recently, and both tires flatted the first 3 times I rode it, even when I replaced the regular tubes with thorn-resistant. Each time it was an organic thorn (probably goathead). All slow leaks so I made it home OK, but the tires were flat next day. I put some cheap, thick, Vee Rubber on it yesterday.