Finally flatted.. do I need to replace my tires as well?
Took the bike out for one last ride of the season before strapping it to the trainer for the winter. We had an abnormally warm day here in Toronto on Saturday.
7km into my ride BAM!!, something is horribly wrong, I stop, and sure enough front is flat. I've never had a real flat before in some 8 years of road biking.
Anyway, judging by the color of the glass shards I pulled out of my tire, I ran over the remnants of a beer bottle. Front and back both took a couple of cuts each, but they are tiny little cuts, maybe 2mm-3mm max, no big slices or gashes, one made it all the way through and punctured my fronts tube. My tires are a set of GP4000s, and relatively new 1.5 years, in excellent condition plenty of life/tread left in them.
Tube replacement aside, do I also need to discard the tires after this? is it ok to continue to use a good set of tires after a puncture? I've heard stories on here of people booting sliced tires with dollar bills in an emergency to make it home. What about small repair? Is it acceptable to say, use my tube patch kit on the inside of the tire(not the tube) where the puncture is and continue to use the tires?
Or is a case of, once they've been pierced through no matter how small, they should be tossed?