Wileyrat

I live and ride in Tucson, and surprisingly enough, I get very few cactus related flats, and when I do, it's on the mtn bike, so I run fairly light tires and tubes on the road bike.

We went to Albuquerque this past weekend to visit in-laws and see the Balloon Festival. I also brought the road bike to ride the Paseo del Bosque mup, and on Sunday I made the fateful ride.

I started out well enough, until I pulled off the path to make myself comfortable for the 32 mile out and back trip, and that's when the fun started. I ended up with so many goatheads in my tires that I flatted both front and back. The back got the spare tube, and I tried to patch the front, until I ran out of patches. Fortunately a kind cyclist gave me his spare, and rather that turning back like I should have, I kept going.

Around four miles up the trail there was a sharp downhill turn to a bridge crossing, and as I went into the turn, my front tire washed out. I fought the bike to get it straightened back up and ended on the side of the mup in some rough gravel heading right at a concreted in wash (large storm runoff ditch). As I fought to not hit the wash, I ended up losing it, and went down hard in the gravel.

When I got up I was rather shaken, it took me a bit to realize I'd been goatheaded again, and my front tire was about half flat, which I assume was the reason it washed out in the first place.

The bike came out it almost unscathed, and I'm scraped and bruised up pretty good, but luckily no broken bones. When my wife asked if the bike was alright, I told her it was fine since I broke it's fall.

I really do not like goatheads.

freedomrider1

sorry about your crash, my wife asked me the same thing last year when i crashed.

qcpmsame 

At least your wife has her cycling priorities straight. Kudos on breaking the bicycle's fall, too.

Glad to know you weren't hurt badly, that could have been worse with the cacti available to land in.....

Bill

Mark Stone

Pretty vicious little ride. Goatheads are unforgiving little sons of skunks . . .

OldsCOOL

My first visit to the desert outside Phoenix, I was horrified to see these gnarly little thorns stuck all over my Jeep tires and shoes. Ugly little stinkers.

JanMM

Very thankful Mom Nature hasn't provided Indiana with goatheads.
Saw some for the first time last winter in Phoenix....while walking. Impressed.

BobbyG

I was averaging a flat every 2 weeks. When a new route to work shortened that to every 2 days I installed tire liners. The next day I had a goathead thorn in the sidewall flat me. But since then just, over a year ago, no goathead flats. I've had a giant roofing nail and a stress tear near the stem but no flats due to goatheads.

Frizlefrak

I grew up in the desert Southwest and have lived in El Paso for 25 years now. Goatheads and I are old frie....errr.....enemies. These things are proof mother nature has a sense of humor. Sorry you had to take a spill.....I knew ABQ had them too, just not to that extent, especially on a MUP. You'd think they would have cleared themselves long ago on the pathway. It's funny....when I'm out riding and I see a freshly mowed parkway, I swing a WIIIIDDDE arc around it.....you just know the mower slung these evil little buggers all over the street.

OldsCOOL

Everything in the southwest natural world is either picky or poisonous.

Fred Smedley

Living in Goathead country all my bikes are set up with these. Seems to help for the most part;VeloBase.com - Component: Bicycle Research Tire Savers - Flint Catchers

qcpmsame 

If your area doesn't have the privilege of having goat-head thorns don't gloat to quickly. I recall Stapfam telling about dreading the spring in England, as the folks are out cutting their grass and trimming hedges and such. The roads are full of thorns that will flat a tire (or Tyre in their case,) in a London minute, when this is going on.

Here in the Gulf Southeast its the ever present sand spurs, not as large as the infamous brethren goat-heads, but capable anyhow.

Every place has its tire eating snakes waiting to make you day complete.

Bill

on the path

I never saw or heard of these before. I'm guessing they mount next to the brake clamps, don't have to be removed to change out a wheel?

locolobo13 

After the recent monsoons Phoenix currently has a bumper crop of goatheads. Before getting back on the bike, after a break on the dirt/gravel, I check both tires for thorns. Doesn't always help.

Mvcrash

Glad your not more seriously hurt. I have to look up "Goathead" but once I find out what it is, I'll be sure to stay away. God Speed for a quick recovery.

John E

I am glad you and the bike came through in reasonably good shape -- front tire flats can be scary.

I discovered goatheads when I moved from Los Angeles to north coastal San Diego County, and they caused me to give up tubular tires. We have periodic Russian thistle abatement efforts, and we are due for another, because those plants grow like weeds.

Wileyrat

Thanks all for the kind words, I'll be back on the bike this weekend.

I'm surprised to see there's goatheads in Phoenix when I've never seen or heard of one in Tucson. These things are serious enough in Albuquerque that one of the tricks I was told roadies do there is to cut the bead off old tires and run the tread inside a good tire as a flat stop strip.

I'll deal with the occasional suguaro or prickly pear thorn imbedded in my mtn bike tire to not have to deal with those.

Mark Stone

I lived in Tuscon in the early to mid 1970s (in the area where Pima St. and Speedway hits Tanque Verde - and it was desert then lol!) and I remember quite a lot of goathead activity there. Not as much as my current city (El Paso) but they were there.

Goatheads are planning world domination from what I hear.

Pamestique 

Pretty much goatheads are not limited to AZ and can be found all all the Southwest. CA is also a nasty place for thorns - both on road and trail. I actually don't mind the Goatheads as much as now, because of the drought, Southern CA i now covered with Russian Thistle and those thorns are like tiny little evil needles... may take a day or so for the tire to go mushy but then, in repairing the flat, its not uncommon to twizzer out 5, 10, 15 of those little thorns. Worse you can't find them all, repair the flat and the next day the tire is down again because you missed one (Saturday a friend had that happen to her on the ride not once, twice but three times!). Probably the reason why so many people in the West ride Tubeless tires. I haven't gone that way yet... but am thinking about it.

Funny most people prefer flats in the front tire... I rather have them in the back. A flat front means lost of control which can be scary. Hope you are OK.

Daspydyr 

Balloon Fiesta? We were there Sunday morning. We started off enjoying a Green Chili Breakfast Burrito and coffee. The winds kept the Balloons from Lifting, but we did get to see a few inflate.

I have gown up in the Southwest and have battled goatheads my entire life. Sorry to hear about your accident.

Daspydyr 

That is really BAD MUP Maintenance. We have miles of MUPs in Southern NV. But there is a "MUP Sweeping Machine" I guess you call it. It is similar to a street sweeper. The crew does a better job keeping the MUPs clean than the street cleaning crews do keeping the bike lanes clean. A bike MUP needs to be maintained to a reasonable extent.

JanMM

Not a new tool - I used those for a while maybe thirty years ago. Yes, they mount in the hole in the fork or brake stay, etc.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/speedp...165078/detail/

qcpmsame 

Those tire savers/flint catchers are handy, a member of BF, Rootboy (Scott,) makes some using brass and surgical tubing that I purchased from him a few years back. Very elegant looking pieces of equipment. We always ran them on our bikes back in the 70's and 80's but the recessed nut for brakes kind of killed them off. Now the C&V guys are bringing them back. These may be Scott's savers, not sure whose these are on Velobase. He was reviewed by one of the C&V gurus and they kind of took off, someone had picked them up as merchandise they are selling. Mine are going to be adapted for the new recessed brake nuts.
Bill

zonatandem

A few goatheads in the Tucson area. More of them in the town of Oracle . . . don't pull off the road there, stay on the pavement.
They seem to be sort of seasonal.
Cactus thorns are a bit of a hassle as they tend to be windborn and end up on the pavement.
Once on our tandem on Oracle Road, my wife yelled "Oww!" Stopped, and she had a windborn saguaro needle stuck in her lower arm.
Have ridden a century in the ABQ area and fortunately did not get any flats.
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

gif4445

Glad to hear you didn't break a bone or two. Goatheads are bastages!! We have them thick in areas here in SC Nebraska. If I don't spray for them regularly, they go crazy. Especially toward the end of the growing season. Around here we call them puncture vine, Texas sandbur or Mexican sandbur. Didn't know they were also called Goathead until I peddled to Breckenridge CO a few years back. They were terrible in western NE and even worse in Eastern CO. Growing everywhere within the towns of Sterling and Ft. Morgan, where the residents informed me what they called 'em out there. I had 9 flats on that trip. Since then I have beefed up the tires with Armadillos and used the thick tubes from Bontrager. World of difference.

John E

I remember tire savers and had them on my better bikes. As Bill mentioned, they were VERY popular in the early 1970s.