Well, after riding the bike Sunday and getting the 2nd flat that night - I took the front rim, tire and 2 tubes to the dealer and he's been looking into the problem. This morning I was in bed and suddenly heard the fsssttt! sound of air blowing! Oh, no! I got up and sure enough my back tire was now flat. It had sat, upside down, for three days and suddenly blows. I took off the tire and inspected the tube. It has a small puncture tear on the center rim side near the stem where a spoke nipple sits. And there's even a good indention on the next spoke nipple area on the tube where it looks like it was wearing down!

I have velox cloth rim strips and they don't seem to be helping! I'm going to take the back wheel in today and talk to the dealer about double-walled rims and double rim strips on each rim, maybe cloth and rubber combined. My rims currently are single-wall.

Seeing that my girlfriend had some problems with her wheels, I'm wondering if this edition of Scott Aspect has rims that are slightly defective, meaning the ones who manufacture the rims, the actual detailed specific mechanical design of these rims are slightly wider than others, allowing more pressure on the tubes pushing against the rims, whereas other rims may be more narrow?!? At this point I'm not really sure. It could simply be my specific rims having some mechanical defect. She's blown 3 tubes and I've blown 7... since she got cloth rim strips, her problems seem, so far, to have ended.

I don't notice any loose spokes on either of my wheels and the nipples on the areas where the tears and puncture have occurred doesn't look or feel much different than any other spot on the rim. All the spoke nipples, of course, protrude slightly up from the rim...

Anyway, I consider the entire ordeal a bit humorous when I owned a $70 Academy Ozone that never had a flat and here I am with my first bike on the higher end and all I seem to be doing is taking it into the shop! Haha! Oh well, I hope I can figure this out or the dealer will cut me a deal on some double-wall rims!

- madmanstan