Mycoalson

1. What is the average mileage I can expect out of a tire?
2. I'm currently running 26x1.50 with about 3000 miles over pavement. I've had three flats in the last two weeks. Could the simply be getting thin and worn out?

3. Given I ride long distance over pavement, can I switch to a thinner tire? If so, how thin?

I think they make 26x1.25...which seems to me would make distance road riding easier...

thoughts?

DnvrFox

see above

Bikey Mikey

I've had 2 sets of Gatorskins. Both sets have gotten at least 5500 miles.

Biker395 

Check out the "Width Considerations" here: https://sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html

Dudelsack 

I have a love/hate relationship with Schwalbe Marathon Plus's. They are 26X1.35, right in the middle of your points of interest. I have about 1800 miles on them and they look brand new. I impaled one with a thorn and discovered it at the end of a ride, yanked it out with no harm to the tire. They are a bit slow, but crap, I'm more than a bit slow, so it's all good.

Thin tires means flat tires and shorter tire life.

It's all about trade-offs: high performance, durability, inexpensive - choose any two.

Doug64

My daughter put 26x1.25 Panaracer Pasela Tourguard Tires on her Long Hual Trucker touring bike. They handled surfaced roads as well as finely crushed rock rails to trails pretty well with about 25 lbs in her panniers. They fit her stock 24.2 mm wide Alex Adventurer rims well. She had no trouble keeping up with the folks running 32mm 700 c tires.

tim24k

I commute on mostly Kenda Kwest 100 psi tires. I get 5,000 miles plus out of them.

PatW

I ride a road bike. I ride 23 mm tires and get almost 2000 miles on a rear tire. Front tires wear much more slowly. Years ago, I used to run tires until I had ply sowing. I don't do that now. Flats seem to come faster as a tire wears. When I get a flat, I check the thickness of the tread area of the tire. When it is uninflected and off the rim, wear is easy to check. If it is pretty thin, I replace it.

sreten

Hi,

1) Depends on the tyre design and the tyre compound. A front
tyre typically lasts 3 times as long as rear. However when the
rear is worn you should move the front to rear fitting the new
tyre to the front so that no tyre lasts longer than another.

Replacing both tyres is hardly ever necessary, but very common.

2) If the flats are on the rear yes. The front unlikely.

3) You can but only if you have very nice roads.
40mm (1.5") is a good size for a 26" wheeled bike.
Consequently quite a lot of good choices at that size.

The right tyres are more important than the size. What have
you currently fitted and what is your budget for (a) new tyre (s).

rgds, sreten.

Mycoalson

I'd like to thanks everyone for the input. As is, I had another flat today! 4 In two weeks. Rear tire again. You guys probably have done more to help me keep my sanity in this situation than anyone else.

The tire doesn't look overly thin or worn, but it does have a lot of miles. The holes are always dang near needle thin.

They are 26x1.50 Kendra Kwest with roughly 3000 miles.

I did get to a bike shop I trust and was pretty much told the same thing I'm hearing here. I don't recall the particular brand and name, but I believe I ordered a continental...26x1.30...The owner indicated these would work fine with my rims.

I really just didn't know bike tires were so short lived.

The sucky part is that I'm in the midst of trying to do a 1000 mile month and had a pretty good head of steam up. The new tires won't be in til next week.

I don't think I can afford a new inner tube every ride, and when I'm reaching out to 50 miles on each, it is a long way from home to chance having both spare tubes used and go flat!

Suffice to say, I don't want to lose my goal, but I'm very nervous about my prospects at this point.

The situation has put me in the dumps pretty good.

NOS88

3000 miles is not an unreasonable tire life, which often depends on numerous factors such as rider weight, inflation, road surface, etc. I hope the new tires serve you well. Look on the bright side; you must be getting fairly proficient in changing flats by now.

Wogster

Question 1, it depends on the tire, some tires have softer rubber for better grip, but those tend to wear more quickly. Other tires have harder rubber, for better wear.

2) There are two ways to tell a tire is worn out, first is a failure to resist flats. If you had 1,000 miles between flats when the tires were newer, and now your getting a flat every 100 miles, the tires are worn. The other way is, if you see threads through the tire, then it's worn out.

3) Not a thinner tire, but a narrower tire, remember there is 25.4mm to the inch, so a 1.25"wide tire is just under 32mm and an 1.5" tire is just over 38mm, these are still on the wider end of road tires. You might find the old 1⅛" width (1.125" or just under 29mm) is probably the ideal... Finding tires that narrow in 26" may be tricky though.

Retro Grouch 

You might find the Hostel Shoppe's web catalog interesting. They have tires listed by brand so you can see the variety of offerings of each manufacturer.

If your only goal was to minimize rolling resistance, you would want a tire that had a short front-to-back contact patch that didn't need to deform very much as it rotates and also one that is very flexible so that it deforms very easily. That translates into a high pressure relatively wide tire with no puncture protective belt and thin rubber. It will be faster, but it is also going to puncture more easily and wear out sooner.

In general, the advantage of narrower tires is less aero resistance. Period. Narrower tires also generally allow higher maximum air pressures so they deform less front-to-back which is good for rolling resistance. Unfortunately however, above a threshold point higher air pressure actually = higher rolling resistance because they make the bike bounce vertically more. The energy that's required to lift the bike vertically doesn't help roll you down the road.

Wider tires can minimize the front-to-back deformation at lower air pressure. Lower air pressure means less upward bouncing. Wider also means more air resistance so, as your speed increases, wider tires become progressively a greater aero penalty.

Thicker rubber and puncture protective belts definitely improve puncture resistance. Unfortunately, they also increase resistance to the front-to-back tire patch flexing which is bad for rolling resistance and they also don't ride as smoothly. Most tire companies offer models with varying degrees of puncture resistance because the most puncture resistant tires tend to ride like ox cart wheels.

I used to think that measuring differences in tire performance was beyond the ability of ordinary riders. Power taps, however, make it possible for an ordinary guy to make some pretty precise comparative measurements. If your only goal is to ride faster, however, you'd be well advised to work on your position on the bike rather than worrying about tire selection. Next to the power that's required to push your torso through the air, everything else combined is small potatoes.

Looigi

There are different points of optimization between frequency of replacement, cost, and performance characteristics depending on your situation and preferences. I prefer Mich Pro4 SC tires for their performance realizing they won't last as long as many others. I average ~2000 miles on a tire always wearing out a rear, moving front to rear, and putting the new tire on the front. I get them from Ribble at ~$35 each so their relatively short longevity is more palatable.

Bill Kapaun

Probably wires from a defunct steel belted radial car tire??

Are you inspecting the tire to find the piece of wire?
I've had one that seemed too short to even penetrate the tread that gave me a pinhole leak.

Have the valve stem located next to the tire logo. That helps locate the piece of wire etc. in the tire in relation to the actual hole in the tube.
Swabbing the inside of the tire with a cotton swab/Q tip can often locate the piece of debris.

10 Wheels

I Have found the tiny wires completely hidden in the contact area of the tire.

Once inflated the wire will give the tube a very tiny leak.