Flat Tire Barrage
 

I was about done with yesterday's ride (30'ish miles and not far from home). Flat tire (in the rear, of course). It was just a bit far to walk it home so I changed the tube (clinchers) and discovered that I had a spare latex tube in my tire kit instead of a butyl. Not what I intended but since I was no more than a mile from home, not a big deal.

Got home, and decided that it was EOL for the chain/cassette anyway, so I dropped the bike off at the LBS for some routine maintenance. This was my Trek SL6.

The next day I did 27 miles on my Bianchi - no issues.

So I went out for a ride today (on my Bianchi) and about 5 miles into the ride another flat tire (rear, of course). Just because of the route I was riding I was again not far from home so I changed the tire (butyl in the kit this time) and planned on going home for proper tire inflation and to get yet another spare tube.

I did not get 100 feet into the ride when I realized that my front tire was also flat! WTF is going on here? The front flat looked like an asymmetrically located pinch flat (when I am riding daily I air up every other day, so maybe the pressure was way down). The other two flats were definitely not pinch flats and I have not found a source for those. But this is getting really old. Maybe I will drop the Conti 5000's (which are a real pain to get on/off my rims anyway) and go back to Gatorskins.

dave

You're just discovering the well-known phenomenon that flats always occur in threes

Sometimes these things just happen at random. Bit of a bummer though!

Did you perhaps ride the same stretch of road on both bikes? Could have been something like a bunch of tiny glass shards left over from a bottle smash on the road in one spot and some got picked up by your tyres causing the punctures (either right away or slowly worked their way through).

Interesting thought. While they were different rides, the "getting to where the real riding starts" is similar. dave

Spring of last year I went through a 2 week period where I had 6 flats. I had a sheathing screw, roofing nail, wire from a tire belt, a piece of glass twice and a pinch flat. Three of the flats were in one morning. IIRC, I had one more flat, I think in June. I have had zero flats since then, approximately 8,000 miles. Sometimes things just happen. If I am lucky enough to go all of 2021 without a flat, I will give some credit to having mounted new tires on the 4 bikes that I ride the most. My miles are spread among the 4, so all tires are still in good condition.

My punctures always come in bunches. It's because a construction trailer dumps some debris, staples, brads, etc., or someone's shredded steel belted radial sprays wires, or some pissy redneck didn't get lucky at the stripper bar and tossed beer bottles out the window. After a few days or weeks normal traffic brushes it away.

My strategy seems to be to personally do the clean-up with my 25mm tires :-) dave

I carry three or five spare tubes.

A patch can be a faster change if you know what caused it. You don't even need to pull the tube. Use a glue patch.

Could you expand on that. I understand how to patch a tube, but I don't know how to do it without pulling at least part of the tube. I think there is something that I am missing here - thanks.

dave

I meant you don't have to remove the tube stem and all, just a couple of feet.

Well those are both prime numbers, but only 3 is a Mersenne prime. You might want to make sure it is three or seven (or 31 if you have the space). 😊

Edit: ok, at least five is a sexy prime, but so is seven.

Otto

I think human brains don't intuitively do well with probabilities and statistics. The success of lotteries is good evidence for that.

When I'm out riding in the middle of nowhere with no car seen for a long while, if I see a car coming from ahead, I can look back and sure enough there will be a car. And they will converge upon me. It seems like that happens every damn time. How can that be? Of course it doesn't, it's just those moments are so memorable, and the single-car passes are forgettable.

Flats don't happen in threes, they just happen. The ones and twos just aren't so memorable.

If clincher tires are too tight, try 2 wraps of Kapton Tape or Velo Plugs instead of Velox. Oh god please, not the Gatorskins!

When I puncture, it’s generally both tires at once. However, I’m also usually unaware until I get home and see the tell tale sign of latex on my seat and down tube.

Sometimes... IT'S JUST YOUR TURN!

Man... Don't ya know it. Go years without a flat then bam. Bam, BAM... Ha

And lets not even mention that dried up tube of unopened vulcanizing cement...

Bad luck?

"Maybe I will drop the Conti 5000's (which are a real pain to get on/off my rims anyway) and go back to Gatorskins"

There in lies the root of your problems. Race day tyres flat way more often than Gators and the like. There IS NO free lunch.

My Gatorskin to Conti 4000 (then 5000) transition was interesting. After maybe 5K miles on the Conti's (following maybe 15K on Gatorskins) my obervations were:

1) There was no doubt that the Conti 4/5k's were more comfortable (and a tad faster)
2) It was not clear that the flat resistance (on the roads that I ride) was different.

So I stuck with the nonGator-Conti's. Now maybe another 15-20k miles on the 4000/5000's is the first time that I have questioned that move.

dave