Originally Posted by
Milton Keynes
Well, you don't want the glue to get dusty, either, since that will prohibit making a good bond.
It doesn't make that much difference. The dust doesn't bond to the glue and is fairly easy to just blow off.
Originally Posted by
yukiinu
On the open road, highways etc, the vast majority of my flats have been caused by needle sharp pieces of tire reinforcement wire from shredded truck tires, that have been moved out of traffic lanes and left on the side of the road. These genally are sticking out of my tire and are easy to see.
That has seldom been the case for me and I've had thousands of flats. Of course once in a while I get luck and can see the shard of metal sticking out of the tire or the 16 penny nail going through both sides of the tire or the decking screw sticking out of the tire but those are rare. I even occasionally see the goathead sticking out of the tire. But most of the time, there isn't a clue as to what has caused the flat.
My co-op offers people the stuff needed for flat fixing and I can't recall ever seeing what caused the puncture and I've seen lots of flats there.
Originally Posted by
yukiinu
Glass is harder to find, because it burys itself in the tire tread, I gently rub my fingers on the inside of the tire at the puncture to make sure whatever came through the tire and into the tube is no longer there.
And how do you "gently rub your fingers on the inside of the tire" without taking a least half the tire off? That' my point. More often than not, you
have to remove the tire and tube to find the flat. I suppose you could do it by sections but that takes more time than just removing the wheel.
Originally Posted by
yukiinu
I get a flat maybe one time in a thousand miles, but I did get 3 flats in one hundred miles because of the shredid truck tires on the shoulder of the interstate that the state didn't clean up, which was all the way across that state, and why I won't cycle in that state and spend money for food and lodging etc again. States should understand that bike tourists spend all day riding 70 miles in their state and spend money for food and a place to sleep, while car drivers at 65 mph spend one hour for the same distance and spend little or nothing in the state. And motel 6 etc., should give discounts to verified cross country bike tourists, who travel short distance (compared to drivers) each day and would use those motels many more times in a thousand miles than a motorist.
The problem is that there are 1,000,000 cars to each touring bicyclist....probably more like 10,000,000. If touring bicyclist rise to the level of 0.1% of the population of the US, I'd be surprised. That's 324,000 bicycle tourist which is still very high in my opinion. You aren't going to make someone rich by cycle touring through their area.