SurferRosa

I only ride on pavement, mostly on correctly inflated 25mm Paselas, and, yeah, I generally watch where I'm going.

You?

georges1

Other I am fitting my road bikes with slime tubes and continental grand prix all seasons tires.While working on a lot of road bike projects and having two other road bikes to upgrade, I use my vintage MTBs fitted with tubeless tires and never had flat with those since 2019.

Piff 

Come visit the southwest We'll cure you of your streak in no time.

Andy_K 

I've got a spreadsheet that I've been using to track data about my flats since 2009. I've gotten 56 flats in that time, which may or may not be enough to be statistically significant. My theories when I started were that most flats would be on the rear tire, when roads were wet, and on tires that had over 2000 miles. The rear tire part of that has been confirmed by the data.

To my surprise, the data doesn't clearly support the other two, though they may still be factors. I've had 11 flats on tires with fewer than 200 miles, but for any given tire there does seem to be a point where they start to flat. Of course, most of my riding on the tires come before that.

The wet tire thing seemed to have scientific support, but only 19 of my 56 flats have come on wet roads. You might think that's because I ride less in the rain, which is true, but I used to ride to work in the rain quite a bit. It seemed to me that there should have been a lot more than there have been.

The other factor I've found to be significant is riding in bike lanes, and to a lesser extent on shoulders. I haven't figured a total for this, but it's almost all of them. What I think is happening is that debris regularly gets kicked out of the main travel lanes (or even swept out by street cleaners) but bike lanes and shoulders get cleaned much less often.

Then there's the choice of tires. Paselas have a pretty thick tread compared to "fast" road tires, such as Conti GP 5000 or most of the Rene Herse tires. I'm a big fan of the latter, but they definitely do have less puncture protection.

Roger M

My kid gave me a flat tire the other day while we were walking to the store.

ThermionicScott 

If you never flat, your tires are too beefy.

P!N20

I haven't flatted since 21. That's June 21.

1989Pre 

There are very few areas where popping a flat is even a remote possibility around here; we have two small cities (Lewiston 20 miles to the N.W. and Portland, 20 miles to the S.) I almost never ride in Portland, and Lewiston I do maybe 4-5 times a summer. These spots are where you have to pay attention to what is on the road ahead of you. The other "hot spot" is where the local trash trucks take the turn to go onto the dump road and then come back out onto the state highway. Other than that, I am free-and-clear.
I can even get away with tubulars with no worries.

Hondo6

I'd say "unusually lucky". Even highly puncture-resistant tires (like Conti Gatorskins and Super Sports) or tires with flat-protection strips flat when you run over a nail you didn't see.

Unfortunately, nails are all too common where I ride. And the roads tend to have light- to medium-gray pavement, which is very close to the same color as a galvanized nail.

I seem to find one every year or two.

pastorbobnlnh 

I don't want to vote and jinx my winning streak.

easyupbug 

​​​​​​​Got ya beat! 2018! But only at our summer place in the Bighorn foothills, in the desert Southwest I celebrate going a month.

thinktubes 

April 26, 2020

ollo_ollo

I'm the Yang to @Hondo6, as in "Usually Unlucky". Lots of flats, especially pre retirement when I commuted. Think I hold the record for earliest flat on a new tire. Two incidents: 1st was less than 1 mile into my daily commute on the Maiden ride of my new Torelli, a regular click, click, click revealed a small sheet metal screw dead center in my front tire. Later eclipsed approximately 1000 yards into my 1st ride on sew up tires when I noticed the rear was going flat....Retirement with less daily riding has helped some. Don

LesterOfPuppets

Feels weird to be reading an east coast post about Portland and Lewiston

jon c. 

I would never state such a thing publicly for fear of offending the tire gods.

Mr. Spadoni 

Obviously, you are not riding anywhere close to where I live. The truck that picks up glass recycling has sprung a leak, dropping little shards of broken glass as it makes its rounds. Tires hold up fine when I’m across the county line where there’s a different recycling service but all of the flats I’ve had recently are within a mile of home.

cyccommute 

Woe unto those who mock the great and powerful Tribulus for thick shall spread his caltrops before the path of the unbeliever. Many shall be punctures and flat shall be thy tires. No progress shall be made for their patch kits shall be as dry and empty as the deserts of world.

I know of that which I speak, traveler, for once I mocked the great and powerful Tribulus and the butcher’s tally on my next travel was more than three score on but a single tyre with as many or more on the other for which they went uncounted. Most assuredly his lesson was a sharp as the ends of his caltrops.

nlerner

I last flatted at 8:19 pm.

Dylansbob 

I flatted 3x on a recent 3m test ride. First one was a shifted plastic rimstrip, so I patched it. Next one was a bit of glass from where someone had broken bottles on the bike path, patched it. Then the obiligitory pinchflat from hopping off the curb on an under-inflated tire. 1m hike back home. I was so pissed off, I put the tubular wheelset back on that bike. At least then I could ride it on flats if I had to...

delbiker1 

IIRC, I have had 4 flats this year, including both tires going at the same time. I had never had that happen before. More 2 flat, or more, rides than I care to remember, but none at the same time. My longest streak of no flats was June of 2020 until Christmas morning of 2021, with 9,000 miles. When that streak ended, I had a rash of flats for about a 4 month stretch.

SurferRosa

.

cyccommute 

No, it’s not. That’s an average of 4 flats per year. I’ve had more than that in a single ride. April 10, 2023 I had 6 in a 35 mile ride. Fixed 3 then ripped out the stem on 2 tubes because I didn’t bring a pump and had to use CO2 cartridges and could get them pumped up high enough. The final tube died because I tried to use a 700x23 tube in a 26 x 2.1 tire. It worked for a while then ripped in two.

I have gone through several boxes of 100 Rema patches since 2009. I’ve run tubes (combined front and rear) with more patches than that. I don’t keep track because the number would be depressingly huge.

etherhuffer 

USAZorro

I was in that club until last year - when I had about five of them on consecutive rides.

scarlson 

Hum, independent thought here. I'm trying to think, anyway. I get a normal amount of flats, like one or two a year, but not from normal things. Most of my flats are because something stupid happened to the tube, like the valve pulls out or the rubber randomly splits or gets hairline/ozone/weather cracks. This is probably because I am going through a family hand-me-down collection of tubes from the '90s and '00s. Sometimes I'll even put a 26" tube into a 650b tire. Those also fail a normal amount, no more than anything else I have.

Nothing I can do, it is better than buying tubes!

Once I got a giant nail through some tiny racing tire. 700x25 I think. Nail in and out. Once on my way to the cape, a tube lost the valve on the several blocks between Harvard's science campus and the MBTA station. I was riding the red line train to the end of the line in Braintree, which is about an hour, so I changed the tube while riding on the subway. Done before we were even downtown, and (weirdly) that train was running on time. Got a lot of weird looks tho. A friend of mine gets tons of flats, like one a month. He's on the same tires, so I don't know what's up with him. He once got a flat from an actual thumb tack, Loony Tunes style.