Tandem Cycling - flats and tires

Running 700x28 Gatorskins on our tandem. On hard surface we're pleased - however, quite a bit of our riding is on the Katy Trail in MO. It's a fine limestone gravel surface. Seems we average a flat in less than fifty miles. Saturday we had two. The second one actually had a rock shard thru the tire, if I hadn't have found it we'd had a third flat shortly.

I quess I'm curious - are we asking to much of these tires to run on the gravel surface of the Katy? We're running 100 psi front and rear.

marc

In my opinion yes. We rode the Katy a year ago with 26x1.25 Schwalbe Marathon Racers which are heavier that the 700x28 Gatorskins and had a flat with the Schwalbes.

My short answer would be..if your tires are fairly new, then no, you probably are not asking too much as far as flats go.
However, I'm not a fan of 28's on non paved rail trails in general even though some people do run then on trails they know well. While we don't ride Rail Trails regularly, of the 25 or so that we have enjoyed, we usually only ride them once. In the process, we have seen far too many variables in the surface conditions to run that small of a tire. When things get wet, soft, too gravelly (sp), or a bit too sandy, I would rather have too much tire under our tandem than too little.

Regarding the Katy specifically, here are a few more thougts that I came away with from that Trail this past spring. We ran it end to end and back again in May during the floods (a heck of an experience for all 450+ miles). We chose to take off our 28 Conti's 4 Seasoms and went with some new 35c Maxxis cross tires. While the Maxxis did not have a great feel to them, they did keep us on top of the soft surfaces and we only had one flat from sharp gravel on our tandem. At the same time, my brother had four flats on his single bike, but he had some older high mileage 35c' cross tires on his. Interesting, all of our flats came in one 100 mile stretch of the trail. For the life of me I can't remember now, exactly where that stretch was but I think it was on one side or the other of Jefferson City.
The botton line was, we were surprised by the number of flats my brother had on like tires and we came away thinking that our newer, fresher rubber just held up better to those sharper bits of gravel that were probably somewhat more exposed from the heavey rains at the time. I was not convinced that even if the trail conditions were ideal that our Conti's would have faired any better or worse, flat-wise, than what we did run.

As an aside, we think the Katy was a pretty cool Rail trail and always recommend it to anyone that has a chance to ride any part of it.

Bill J.

We have had no issues riding Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires on our tandem, or on our other bikes (trike) as well. Virtually indestructible. We could care less about the extra grams the tires weigh, we're just confident that, properly inflated, the tires are going to hold up when we venture onto unpaved territory. The rear tire on the tandem (26") is coming around to 5000 km so we're keeping an eye on it. The front (20") - - - it's a recumbent tandem, looks almost new. Tread wear on both tires looks good for the distance they have carried us. Mike

I would go with wider tires for off road. But if you're going to ride the 28s, I'd run them at 120psi. They might be a little more resistant to pinch flats at that pressure.

I switch out my 28's for 37mm Conti Top Touring for Katy Trail excursions -- you should too!

No flats yet on the Katy, and the ride quality, traction, roll, and flotation is just right. IMO.

Well, I just order two Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700x35's, guess we'll have to go to Rocheport and try 'em out this weekend. :thumb:

marc

I've totally missed the love for Gatorskins. I slapped some on our tandem, seemed we were flatting every other ride, including the first ride of 40 miles.:eek: I removed them after a couple of months, just got tired of the flat repairs. Placed them on my single with the same results. :mad: Gators, waste of money IMO!

I read a rec here in the tandem forum, Serfas Seca at REI ($24 wire beads, 700 X 28) Problems solved. So much better than the GS, that I started using them on my single as training tires. Almost half price of the Gators, I can nearly buy two for every one and have better protection.:thumb:

I've totally missed the love for Gatorskins. I slapped some on our tandem, seemed we were flatting every other ride, including the first ride of 40 miles.:eek: I removed them after a couple of months, just got tired of the flat repairs. Placed them on my single with the same results. :mad: Gators, waste of money IMO!

I read a rec here in the tandem forum, Serfas Seca at REI ($24 wire beads, 700 X 28) Problems solved. So much better than the GS, that I started using them on my single as training tires. Almost half price of the Gators, I can nearly buy two for every one and have better protection.:thumb:

Still on sale:

http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/TI271B00-Serfas+Seca+28C+Road+Tire.aspx

Maxxis tires have a great Kevlar casing and while nothing is puncture-proof, they are very puncture resistant.
Been running Maxxis Re-Fuse 700x25 folding tires for the past several years.
Just our input . . .
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

There might be something to specbill's contention that older tires could be more prone to flat. We rode the South Rim of Canyon de Chelly on our Gatorskins with around 3000 miles on them. The road was horrific, being under construction, and we finished up without incident, but the next day our rear tire was going down slowly. We found some sort of foreign object, very small, but no entry hole. It was our first ever flat with the gatorskins, but we run 110 lbs and are only a 260 lb team.

Frank and Terry