rsbob 

What I mean by sweep is after you run through glass, reach down with your gloved hand and place it on the tire to hopefully remove any glass that is trying to imbed.

RCMoeur 

As I have fenders on all my bicycles except for the two fastest lightest ones, I use my shoe just under the fender. On the fender-deprived bikes, I sweep conventionally, but have to be slightly careful on the short-chainstay Raleigh Pro to keep the hand a bit high on the rear wheel so as not to use it as an impromptu seat tube / hand meat / glove / tire sandwich emergency brake.

79pmooney

Yes, but ... I don't dirty/wear out my gloves going that. I use my bare fingers so I know what I just brushed off. (I've felt goatheads that didn't come off and stopped and pulled them out before flatting.)

I"m back to riding tubulars again and brushing a lot more as I have a much higher investment now in my rubber.

Edit: Haven't done it yet but glass catchers will go back on my fenders. I don't trust my feet around the tires. Plus pedaling fix gear one footed while I scrape with the other is a skill for one of my other incarnations, not this current one.

zandoval 

Ahhh... You might find me at a stand still having just come off a short single track in August dismounted to Sweep Goats... Yep...

mschwett 

yes, but i usually stop to do it and will often used something other than a gloved hand depending on the nature of the debris. i do feel like it makes a difference, rather than grinding/pushing in a bunch of little bits of rock/glass/metal that otherwise could be removed.

rsbob 

Back in the 70s there were sweepers you could mount on your bike the constantly dragged on the top of the tires. I remember they were made of metal and mounted to the brake mounts.

Tycho Brahe 

I will do a check of the insides, but not sure about "gloved hands". You mean full-fingered gloves? I very rarely use those.

Eric F 

I used to. I’m out of the habit these days. Maybe it’s trust that my tubeless tires will do more for me than a “sweep”.

chaadster

I think they’re still available from Rene Herse.

EDIT: yep
https://www.renehersecycles.com/shop...s/tire-wipers/

phrantic09

How long until Jan posts on the blog that they reduce RR?

datlas 

Got into the habit when I started cycling in Baltimore back in the 1980’s as there was broken glass EVERYWHERE!

I still do it, but thankfully it’s not as often as bitd.

Trakhak

Used to, sporadically, over the decades. Stopped when I read the late Jobst Brandt's dismissal of the practice as being nonsensical. Rate of flats unaffected either way.

Since I switched to riding 28-mm tires, flats have occurred far, far less frequently. Once a year, maybe.

shelbyfv

Anxiously awaiting poll close on 4/29 when we'll learn what we should be doing.

Bruizer

Please don’t forget to hook your thumb on the seat stay. If not you can get your hand pulled between the tire and seat tube. Instant braking and possibly instant breaking. Don’t ask me how I know.

jadmt

do it whether gloves or bare fingers and never have I got nicked yet. In the old days when I was racing and putting lots of miles on I still got lots of flats. now not so many better tires I guess. I do have a difficult time reaching my rear tire tho on the bike I am now riding. it is a long reach and I am not that flexible anymore.

Trakhak

Clearly, the gods decreed that brushing your tires would be easy on racing bikes with short chainstays and fragile tires but almost impossible on fat-tired, long-wheelbase bikes.

genejockey 

I do, especially if I hear a "tick-tick-tick" from one of the tires. I don't know how many times it's saved me a puncture, but t has cleaned off stuff stuck to the tire a couple times. Then there's the front tire on the Litespeed, which has an almost invisible cut in the tread that's not deep enough to matter but is deep enough to go "tick-tick-tick" loudly enough that on quiet roads it bugs me. But it doesn't bug me worth ditching a GP5000 with a couple thousand miles left in it.

_ForceD_

The only time/period I didn’t do it was that brief period when I was using solid, airless tires.

Dan

prj71

Never do it. Tubeless.

rsbob 

I use the palm of my fingerless or fingered gloves. Have never used my bare fingers.

Did reach back a few years ago a bit to far and found my fingers bouncing off the rear spokes. Must look positively suicidal to passing motorists.

Trakhak

Might be that you can fix the ticking noise by dripping in some glue.

The Dunlop repair kits for tubular tires that we bought in the 1960s came with tubes of black, treacly "Tread Stopping Compound"---"stopping" being the British equivalent of "plugging" in this context, just as dentists in Great Britain "stop" cavities with amalgam fillings.

The tins containing the clincher repair materials---wish I'd saved one of the tins---admonished users not to peel the edge of a newly applied patch to see whether the glue job had worked---doing so, quote, "serves no purpose and might indeed cause the patch to fail." (From memory: if someone has such a tin or a photo of one, please correct.)

popeye

Yes, for the rear I unclip my right foot raise my leg extended, rotate to the rear and rub the tire with the edge of my foot eyes forward. Done the way I do it there is no chance of catching a spoke.

Ogsarg

No choice in the poll for the occasional sweeper? I have done it maybe a half dozen times in the last 5 years; typically right after I've ridden through an area where I thought it might help avoid a puncture.

Troul 

I'll sweep the tires if I cite the conditions I cycled through posed a flat risk. Otherwise, I sweep them after that ride. Then typically once more I do an amnesia sweep before the next ride if the bicycle sat untouched for a while, which has shown me to be beneficial habit.

79pmooney

Now Cycle Oregon has a better approach. They apply the sweeps to the street, not each tire. I believe a regular street sweeper, donated after an especially bad year for goat heads; a nightmare year for the mechanics. I don't know if the sweeper is still being used post-pandemic. CO has far fewer volunteers and is operating an a much stricter budget. Last September was goat head country and every flat I saw was rest stop related so that sweeper might have been out there. (I've never seen the sweeper. It operates while we are sleeping.)

From Bruizer, "Please don’t forget to hook your thumb on the seat stay. If not you can get your hand pulled between the tire and seat tube. Instant braking and possibly instant breaking. Don’t ask me how I know. " Yes! (Though this is very bike dependent. I have two bikes with room for the huge fat hands I do not have. A race bike (and my old race bike) where fingers didn't fit, period. If you don't find the seatstay first you might pull an Rsbob "Did reach back a few years ago a bit to far and found my fingers bouncing off the rear spokes. Must look positively suicidal to passing motorists." But that's probably better than the tire suck on a short wheelbase bike which I cannot imagine ending well.