Originally Posted by
jefnvk
Took me about two and a half years after getting back into riding to flat. Flatted a second time two weeks later. They are part of riding. Carry a pump, tire levers, and a spare tube or patch kit, and the knowledge to use them.
Also, I'd be willing to bet your old MTB had knobby tires, which really help with flats on road. Kinda suck to ride on the road, though.
Topeak Road Morph G. Use it as your every day pump, it is strong and quick enough, if you really want. IT'll do both, although annoying to change the internal bits around.
I'm working towards a pump on every bike, nothing more discouraging than starting a ride knowing you left the pump on the other bike and hoping for no flats.
Second all of these. You HAVE to know how to fix flats out in the wild AND need to carry the tools to do so with you.
Knobs on MTB tires = no flats because your tube is protected by 1/4" of rubber, but you're losing waaay more energy than you should be to the flexing of the rubber (both knobs & low-pressure tires).
I've been using the Road Morph G for over 5 years, great pump, goes up to 100PSI no problem. One thing I hate about it is the gauge though - have they managed to fix that? Mine is hard to read with the white & black marks.
Oh, and do look at more puncture-resistant tires (like the aforementioned Schwalbe Marathon - seems to be the touring tire of choice). I put Maxxis Xenith on my MTB because I got tired of fighting the knobby tires and the ride improved dramatically. Years later there are all sorts of cuts & nicks in the contact strip with all kinds of rocks and small pieces of glass embedded in them, but haven't flatted in over a year (when a large shard of glass made its way to the tube)