Originally Posted by duceditor

I have to ask this... Are modern bikes, or at least some types of same, particularly prone to flats? I ask because although I am a new returnee to riding, my youth was spend on a bicycle - indeed one not too different from the `69 Raleigh I ride now. And I NEVER, no NEVER got a flat. Never. Nor to my knowledge did my parents who took my even then old Rudge (and my girlfriend's) down to FL when they retired and rode them and rode them and rode them.

What gives?

I believe for the most part we are talking about road tyres. These thin tyres just don't have the think rubber carcass ye olde balloon tyres had. And apparently rubber isn't that great holding 100 psi air pressure. You can buy road tyres with a Kevlar belt that should help prevent flats. Sometimes it just seems to be luck. Got almost 3 years on Continental GT4000's without flats. Now trying to wear out the last of my Bontrager Select tyres and have a couple flats with each. Some ride in areas with thorns (goat heads) and those who ride on road also can flat from the fine wires that come out of steel belted radial auto tyres. Something we didn't have a few decades ago, except for those few sport cars with Michelin X tyres.

And just as I never got a flat I was never particularly fussy about air pressure either. Now I am, measuring and pumping in a few lbs each weekend. (I keep mine at 65lbs rear, 60 lbs front.)

-don