lshaped

yesterday i flatted on the way home from work for the second time in a week.
what made it tough was i used up my spare tube and was still 20 miles from home so i
had to call for a ride. i run bontrager hardcase tires on my fx and the first set
i had i ran 4000 miles without a flat- this new set has 1000 miles on them and
i've flatted twice this week.
I decided i've had enough and call my lbs, told them to order me a set of gatorskins
and a set of slime tubes- let's see if this makes a difference

alan s 

I purchase all of my tires from PBK, at usually about 1/2 the retail price. Takes a week for delivery, but the savings are well worth the wait.

mtalinm

could be worse - I had a rear flat on my Soho, which has a belt drive, drum brakes, and an IGH. took me and a friend over an hour to replace the tube (and tire, while we were at it).

I hardly find PBK to be half price ... maaaaybe 20% off and things hardly arrive in a week. just need to look around a bit.

alan s 

My last pair of Gatorskins cost $51 total and took a week to deliver.

AdamDZ

Definitely get puncture resistant tires. Also carry a patch kit. It takes few minutes to patch a tube if you run out of spares. Get a fresh kit every year as the glue can go bad. I've just learned that last week, the glue "separated" and had chunks in it, didn't work well Maybe it was just this one brand?

lshaped

you're right on the patch kit- i have one somewhere but didn't think
to carry it, time to buy a new one. what also is maddening is trying to
get hardcase tires off a wheel- i'm not sure if there is a trick to this but
i broke 2 tire levers and spent over 30 minutes trying to get them off

mconlonx

Not sure that you'll have better luck with gatorskins v. hardcase tires, either with ease of mounting them or with flat protection...

lshaped

i'm having a tough time getting some tires for my Trek FX/commuter bike.
my commute is 5 miles limestone rail trail, the remaining 16 is city roads
i'm looking for a high psi, low rolling resistance tire that is puncture resistant
based on a BF search i did i narrowed this down to schwalbe marathon HS382- (out of stock)
and specialized CX armadillos (also out of stock). i'm stumped. i can't seem to find anything else
that is 700c/32 and higher psi. any suggestions. I've thought about going down a tire size to 28 but i'm not sure if
gatorskins would work on gravel

PaulRivers

You may already know this, but if you're getting multiple flats close together, you really need to make sure the same thing isn't getting caught in the tire. When you take off the tire and the tube, keep track of where they are relative to each other and track down the location of the flat.
1. If the flat is on the inside of the tube, you probably need better rim tape.
2. The flat is on the outside, make sure you get whatever cause the flat out of the tire or it will keep causing flats later.
3. If the flat is by the stem, sometimes it's a defective stem but occasionally there could be a metal burr on the wheel itself.

Just sayin' - #1 and #3 won't be helped with a tire tire, #2 will be fixed by a new tire but a new tire is unnecessary.

Cyril 

Try the Conti travel contact tire........might be just the thing.

Best,
Cyril

h. bicycletus

". . . trying to
get hardcase tires off a wheel- i'm not sure if there is a trick to this but
i broke 2 tire levers and spent over 30 minutes trying to get them off. . . "

You might try Lezyne tire levers. . .they're aluminum and I doubt you'll break one like you might snap plastic ones. And, Hardcase tires have wire beads, no? Wire beads do seem to take a bit more leverage than kevlar bead tires, although I'll admit, I've had some tight kevlar bead tires too. . . .seems to be a matter of tire--rim match-up and not all tires seem to mate easily to all rims. Shouldn't be that way but "standard sizes" sometimes aren't. . .

bhop

I carry 1 tube and a patch kit. I haven't had to use the patch kit, but i've gone through a few tubes.

nelson249

+1 The repaired tube becomes then becomes my reserve one kept in the seat bag (after testing for air tightness of course).