bluezurich

Over time I have learned to stop trying to get it done fast. The longer I take, the more at ease I am and the calmer I am restarting the ride. Probably do a better job that way as well, don't you think?

MinnMan

Different tires and rims affect how long it takes. Tires that are hard to mount take longer. A strike against GP5000s?

Also, it depends on how easy it is to diagnose the cause of the flat. If I'm pretty sure it was a puncture, but I can't find the offending penetrating object, I'll take some time to hunt in order to guarantee that I don't get a second flat a few miles down the road.

But as I'm not racing, and also many of my group rides (including the fastest ones) are no-drop affairs where the group will wait until the flat tire is fixed, a modest increase in the time by the side of the road is no big deal

ridingfool

u might have a point have got a few off of amazon and they were really pronevto flats and sidewall puncures maybe just bad like or a bad batch but for the most part am satisfied with gp11 can get almost 3 thousand miles out of a tire and am a very heavy rider at 230 pounds. Also as others have said the all seasons are really good for flat protection and great handling in the rain .a little bit slower. But if you flat with another tire u will lose 10 to fifteen min on side of road changing tube out so time lost more than makes up for a little speed lost riding the all season for peace of mind of hardly ever getting a flat

Seattle Forrest

I passed a fellow roadie in the middle of nowhere last summer, and checked the flyby thing. Comment on his ride said he didn't realize ~30 miles of the loop he was doing were gravel, and he got some crazy number of flats. No phone reception out there, so instead of a call of shame it's a long walk or hitchhiking.

I never carried enough to deal with 6 flats. I'm with you, I'll say F it after 3.

And I try to have some idea what I'm getting myself into.

Racing Dan

And on the pump. 1/2 the time is spent pumping. CO2 or a good pump makes the exercise a lot easier.

79pmooney

My approach to tires is one that I haven't seen in this thread.. To my mind, tires have a job that outranks everything else. Keeping me upright. Two years ago I found the best clincher yet for that job. I like also that they are not especially heavy and roll very nicely. Yes, they are not cheap. But at my age and with this body's lifetime crash quota having been met, I look at the $70/tire I pay as cheap insurance.

Vittoria Corsa G+ (so far all in 28c). Yes I do get more flats with these tires, mostly from those near invisible tire wires. They don't attract them too much in their early miles but they last a good long ways and their magnetism increases as they wear.

What those tires do so well is climb out of pavement ruts and crack and back onto the pavement if you had to leave it. I think this is a combination of the graphene technology and going back to the old ribbed tread we trained on 40 years ago. Over the past two years, since I started riding the G+ tires, I have been really enjoying how much less attention I have to pay to the pavement. Glass and debris, yes. But cracks, water, slide starters and the like don't phase these tires. Today I got to see them pull me through a completely unplanned maneuver. I was riding a 2 lane rural road when an oncoming sporty Camaro decided to hit the throttle and pass. Oh ****! Well there was 12' of wider shoulder right there for the entrance to a dirt farm path. Pulled over and immediately that Camaro passed where I just was. Then just as fast, that godsend of pavement was ending and returning to the ditch I'd been paralleling. Pile of gravel on the last foot of pavement. Well I had no other choice so I planted the front wheel in the gravel and turned left hard. And no big deal! The bike just cut over and I was riding like nothing happened.

I hope I never start thinking I can plan on that kind of performance from these tires but I love that when I've asked, its always been there. (And I've been let down - quite literally - by a few tires that simply didn't do their job.)

I will agree with others on this thread. There is no free ride. Every tire I've ridden with that extra "emergency grip" has been faster wearing and/or more prone to both glass and cuts and/or been slow to very slow. But this G+ (now G 2.0 which I haven't ridden yet) raises the bar. They are fast. Decently long wearing. OK at the flat end. (One poster above talks of one flat offsetting the time savings of a few thousand miles of lower rolling resistance. For me, one crash that doesn't happen offsets an awful lot of flats. Maybe not in terms of time spent on the side of the road, but quite probably the next year in bed with pads around my injuries. (Remember, I've filled my quota. Now when I land, I land on an old injury. Re-injured old injuries don't heal for beans.)

Ben

Psimet2001 

1:45 of watching someone else do it before I pull a Nick Burns:


I do so many in the shop daily that I just don't think about it. There's a ton of variables but let's just say that in each scenario I seem to be faster than most. I don't race it though so...

Abe_Froman

I'm no champ...but if I'm working fast on the side of the road with a full group ride waiting on me...I can do it in around 5 minutes I think.

At home, with a beer, being paranoid about finding whatever caused the flat, spending extra time making sure a tube didnt get pinched, massaging the bead to make sure it's even all around the tire, pumping up 3+ times, letting air out, massaging again etc,...probably 10-15 minutes.

The point I was after above is that a flat really shouldn't ruin an afternoon....if it does, you probably need some practice.

Psimet2001 

Absolutely.

dmanthree

Quicker on a warm day, but about 5 minutes. Not including the 9 billion times I have to push the mini-pump. No, I don't carry a CO2 pump. Hate them.

I'm hoping I don't flat the new tires. They really went on tight.

Lemond1985

Changed so many goathead flats last summer and fall, that the first joint in my right thumb developed arthritis from re-installing too many ultra-tight tires by hand.

stephanlinn

For context, I ride 100 miles/week in an urban environment. My new bike(6 months old) came with 4000's and I had a flat every month. Otherwise they were a dream to ride compared with gators on my old bike.
I thought of going tubeless with 5000's but they were muy expensive, so I got some Schwalbe pro-one and mounted them tubeless. They also have a very nice feel, let you know how durable.

zigmeister

Interesting thread....8yrs I've been using GP4000S tires. For training/racing. Only have had 2 flats. Tens and thousands of miles. I've thought of switching and trying something new lately. Last time I did that, I moved to Schawble tires, think the thread is around here still...Never Again Schawble is the title..and I got flamed beyond belief to have the nerve to blame their crappy tires, 2 of them, that lasted 1 week.

Switched to GP4000S, never looked back.

francov

I ran the GP4Ks for a 1/2 a season and had two flats, replaced them with Conti 4 Seasons last fall and and have had no troubles, roughly 1000 miles on them, though I'm regretting saying that, damn Murphy's law...

MinnMan

Some mini-pumps are better than others. I like this one - it has a foot-stand and a rotating handle so you can get better leverage than just holding the two ends in either hand.

MinnMan

They are cheap now that the 5000s have arrived and the old ones are remaindered . Buy up a bunch and you won't have to migrate for a long time.

llegger

Yep. I stopped buying Conti 4000 tires after multiple side wall tears that my friend also got. I never had this problem with other brands.

dmanthree

Understood. But, I always like impressing my friends when I can roll the tire on without using tools. It remains to be seen if my latest rubber will allow that. They went on really tight and I needed a tire spoon. Shoot.

Lemond1985

Try soapy water or oil or something liquid before using tools. I finally had to resort to that with may last two sets of Panaracer tubeless compatible tires. I got one of the Kool Stop tire bead jacks too, those Panaracer tires are really something else to get on.

BrazAd

Okayyyy, whatever. I think you mean Vittoria tires, maybe? I ride 4k-5k miles a year. Was 263 when I started 2 years ago, down to 238 by now. On my 3rd set of GP4000s II and couldn't be happier. Not one flat and they are smooth riding and handle beautifully.

When GP came out with the 5000 I thought to myself, "Why 'fix' what doesnt need fixing?" But a good thing happened right after the 5000 tires came out! The price on 4000s II dropped to below $35/tire! So now I'm set for a while to come...

Gary

dmanthree

I did have to resort to some dishwashing soap, and even after that I still needed a spoon for the last section of the bead. Just couldn't roll that last section over, dammit.

BarryCW

Terry my mate gave me an old steel bike with his conti repair. Had to share

Duragrouch

Steel belted steel. No rubber. Trains have low rolling resistance so are fast. In a straight line. I'm guessing the rock hard solid core rental bike tires may be similar.

Abe_Froman

Well train 'tires' have optimal grip for cornering as well haha.

They would still suck on pavement though, and be comically slow, even in a straight line.

Carbonfiberboy 

Stopping for someone else's flat on the group ride, sometimes it's all I can do not to start shoving people aside and hollering commands. Pump! Tube! Fill it! Some air in the new one! Use your thumbs! Does someone have a pump that works?

But I don't. Not socially acceptable. Unsolicited advice is the worst possible thing.