Originally Posted by
Andy_K
That leaves bike lanes. I think this one is a very under-rated factor. I've been noticing lately that while the bikes lanes I ride on are lousy with debris, the auto lanes are strikingly clear. Broken glass in the auto lane quickly gets ground to dust or kicked onto the shoulder. Broken glass in the bike lane stays there until picked up by a bike tire or cleaned up by the monthly street sweeping. If you ride primarily on roads with no bike lane, you may not realize just how absurdly bad the typical conditions of bike lanes are. You don't know how good you have it with your poorly paved rural roads.
That's a major reason I avoid bike lanes...
I got a flat on Saturday. With kevlar tires, I don't carry a spare tube, so it set me back about two hours to walk far enough to get change for bus fair, then to catch a ride to a local bike shop. It was pretty disappointing. On the other hand, the tire has plenty of miles on it, and it'd been raining on and off that day ( and heavily the few days before ), so, to some extent, this seems to match your own experience.
I tried the nasty slime on my last bike, which did prevent flats, but also seemed to gunk up my valves.