rumrunn6

riding home from work one day, still about 5 miles from home and I hear it ... *pssst* ... so, fine, I pedal on while I watch and listen as the tire goes soft, but wait, the hissing stops and the tire keeps enough air to keep riding! I pull over and change the tube cuz it was too soft I and can't figure out what happened. it was just before a fork with a church and I wound up sitting under the tree at the church to do the work. you think maybe God thought I needed to take a break?

OldsCOOL

You just never know.

fietsbob

the end of Mr Tuffy puncture prevention strips. wears a hole in the tube..

OldsCOOL

I've had one flat in 5 seasons until today. Today was flat tire day and I was a participant. Here I am putzin' around town on "Hummer" (tire noise). My favored mountain bike. In town. Beautiful, clean streets. Suddenly, there was a strange ***ka-*****, ka-******** noise from the rear wheel that led me to think it was a broken spoke. Nope, it's a MTB. Then I saw it, sticking out of the back tire was a DRILL BIT!!!

Good thing I was 2 blocks from my shop. Good grief

canklecat

My two oddest flats the past year have been on the comfort hybrid, on the inside facing the rim. Not puncture flats.

First time, the tube was dimpled at regular intervals, with some dimples split and leaking air. Turned out to be a quirk of using thin rubber rim strips on double wall rims. The tube extruded through the thin rubber rim strip into the deeper nipple holes. Thicker Velox cloth tape provided the necessary support.

Second time, also a leak on the inside facing the rim, appeared to be a flaw in the tube. There was no evidence of anything sharp embedded in the rim strip. The hole appeared more like a pinhole from a bubble, not a puncture or split.

Retro Grouch 

That's a steel belted radial tire wire. Not uncommon at all. I've started carrying a needle nose pliers in my flat repair kit for pulling those little devils out of the tire.

OldsCOOL

And sometimes there are piles of strands on the roadside. But then, that's better than a drill bit.

robj4

A few years ago I picked up a 3/4" ball of black duct tape on the road. I never saw it on the road or felt it, until it got wedged into the rear brake. As I was riding it felt as if a brake was dragging. I looked down and didn't see anything so I decided to pull over and look. When I got down to about 7-8 mph it locked up the rear wheel and the tire blew. The wedged tape had been wearing on the sidewall and it created a 1/4"x 1" hole just above the bead. Fortunately I was a mile from home.

BlazingPedals

I had a flat on my pickup caused by a 8" tent stake. I had parked in a grass field for a big event and I suspect some kid deliberately positioned it to do exactly what it did. On my bike? Nothing exciting comes to mind, just the standard rocks nails and screws.

ocsawdust

Not a bad thread to wake up. Nobody got flats in 2016 so the bike shops must be mad for not selling any tubes!

Years back on a club ride with my junior college teammates on guy really had a bad day. He got around 5 flats on this one morning ride. He was riding on our spare tubes on the 3rd or 4th. Then about 20 miles out he gets another. Everyone was just getting passed now. This time it turned out he picked up a 16d nail. As we are all just getting real pissed he shows the nail, it went right tire, tube, and rim. Then we couldn't budge the nail from the rim , someone had to go find some pliers. I think we threatened him that we would never ride with him again.


Also years back, a group of us got together for a Friday night ride on the mtb's . Great memories there. We were on a trail along the top of a ridge looking down on newport beach, ca. We came up on some cattle and then there were these screams. I guess we got in between a calf and his mom. It was a crazy crazy sound. I was riding up the rear, everyone else was stopping in front and I screamed at them to go. The sounds of the hoof's coming up behind me that i figured was mom, and pissed. We all just went the opposite direction of the ridge. Until it was too late to realize we just rode through a giant area of thistle. I think everyone got flat and a few had double flats. Oh the fun having flats at night. Another funny addition to the flats was one guy didnt have bike tire patches in his seat bag, he had a repair kit for a zodiak inflatable. It was just a huge chunk of rubber patch and he was just cutting off pieces. He also had a hard time finding the hole as there were around 20 patches on the tube already. I miss those days, and the trails. That hill got developed into what is now newport coast.

noglider 

When I was in high school, I once left a steel tire lever between the tire and tube and didn't notice it when I inflated the tire. I did notice the lumpy ride soon enough, so it didn't cause a flat. It sure was silly, though.

indyfabz

Until I went tubeless, all my flats were caused by holes in the tubes.

Cyclist0094

I was scheduled to lead a club ride and discovered at the last minute I had a flat on the front wheel. I quickly popped the tire off, put in a new tube and inflated it with my shop air compressor. I put the bike in the back of my Subaru station wagon and hauled a$$. 20 minutes later while I'm doing 80 on the NY State Thruway there is this loud explosion in the car. The overinflated tube had pushed the tire off it's bead and blew. Scared the living s--t out of me. I later discovered that I had the compressor set for 165 psi !

OldsCOOL

Did the nail trash the rim?

OldsCOOL

Wow and Ugh simultaneously!

Doug64

No, I still have the rim, but it used as a spare.I had a similar incident happen. I was staying in a motel with my wife and 2 kids near Seattle planning to take the ferry over to a race on one of the Islands early the next day. It was February, and pretty cool outside. To save time the next morning I got the bright idea of pumping up my tires the night before. I then brought my bike in and set it against the wall near a heater (duh!). About 2 am there was the same loud explosion. One of my sewups had exploded. While my family enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on the ferry, I was down on the cold car deck fixing the tire. I only had one spare tire, and did not want to chance riding without one. They did bring me down a coffee

Flip Flop Rider

the spring to a clothes pin. Stuck perfectly into my brand new schwalbe marathon plus and flatted it on day 1

TimothyH

Carbide tipped circular saw blade just laying in the road.

Hit it on the way to work.


-Tim-

europa

I never did find what caused this, but I was approaching a very steep down hill, usually taken at insane speeds with steel death machines brushing my elbows (the safe technique was to get going as fast as the cars and take the lane... at 80+ km/hr). Just as the road started to dip, I felt the rear tyre go squishy. Safely stopped, I lifted the bike into the bushes and looked for the problem. It was easy enough to find, I could push my finger through the hole in the tyre

I didn't bother to fix that one, I wimped out and called my son for a lift.

FlashBazbo

Two odd ones:

1. We were riding on a very nice road in a rural area. Riding a brand new set of Gatorskins for winter training, bragging about never having had a flat when riding Gatorskins. DURING THE CONVERSATION, it came . . . psh psh psh psh psssssh! In the leak, I found a tiny hollow metal tube. I'm assuming it was a broken piece of a hypodermic needle.

2. Early in the morning, just about dawn, I was bombing down a highway descent. Due to heavy high-speed traffic, I moved over onto the smooth shoulder. Near the bottom, there was a bridge but the road had settled badly and opened up holes on both ends. As a result, there were huge, sharp-edged concrete gaps. I didn't see the problem in time to bunny hop. When I hit the bridge, BOTH tires exploded in succession . . . BOOM, BOOM. Still rolling at 40 mph or so, when I hit the craters at the other end of the bridge, both rims were destroyed.

Had to call for help.

civic04

Had vinyl siding put on my wooden shed to make it look good,have been putting my bikes in a least 75-100 times since, well today came home from ride put bike into the shed, back tire against wall and lo and behold a nail punctured the tire where they missed bending a nail over that came thru the old wood siding,nail had to be sticking out a 1 1/2.

Bsgs87

A few years ago I picked up a fish hook that punctured the side of my tire and I was riding on a highway.

sknhgy 

Just had this happen.

Also had the bottom of a broken beer bottle destroy a nearly new Schwalbe marathon plus.

fietsbob

Oregon Bottle bill made throwing away bottles, throwing away money.. your deposit.

Biker395 

It also meant $ to people willing to pick up bottles and recycle them.