Bicycle Mechanics - I love Park's Tire Boots!!

I rode from Pittsburgh to DC last week and had 3 flats in the last 5 miles. The first 330 mile on the GAP & C&O was no problem but as soon as I got into DC!! I probably pushed the lie expectancy of the tires but I used them anyway. The last 2 flats I found a hole in the center of the tire and I just cut a Parks Tire Boot into 2 pcs. and I was good to go after fixing the tubes. So I will never leave home without them!!

A dollar bill or a scrap of Tyvek work just as well. Pittsburgh to DC on a rail trail sounds like a great ride. How was the traffic?

Their job is to get you home, where you buy a new tire.

Traffic?? No traffic until I got to Georgetown. It a great ride.

I want to do that ride sometime. I have ridden pieces of all the trails, but never the whole thing at once. The Paw Paw tunnel is very cool!

-SP

...but as soon as I got into DC!! I probably pushed the lie expectancy...

Yes, the lie expectancy increases exponentially as one gets nearer Washington, D.C.

Back to the OP, Park boots have saved my bacon and gotten me home on two separate occasions. I keep a couple in the seat bag. In each case, the tire was toast, but I made it back OK.

Maybe needs a better tire?

The last 2 flats I found a hole in the center of the tire and I just cut a Parks Tire Boot into 2 pcs. and I was good to go after fixing the tubes. So I will never leave home without them!!
well it's great to have a boot.
I ran into problems with this very product when applying it and then trying to ride at full pressure. the boot itself - however thin it may seem - has an edge and doesn't play nice with the rubber tire after a number of revolutions. That small edge actually gradually cut into my tire and gave me a flat ! So this is a very qualified criticism - at high pressure, over some distance. So I wouldn't try to use a park boot like this again.

Anyway, my preferred "boot" now is actually an old-style tube patch. They're round or square-ish and get very thin on the edge, so thin that they don't cut in. They're not pre-glued so you apply one with a bit of glue from a tube. Instead of glueing it onto a hole on my tube, I just invert it and glue it onto a hole on my tire from the inside. With this as a boot, I was able to get back to normal air pressure and do a few hundred km before I got tired of the experiment and went ahead and replaced the tire. Probably would have gone hundreds more if I tried.

As another backup, I also carry that paper stuff, probably called Tyvek that somebody mentioned.