Originally Posted by shecky
Nashbar has some nice inexpensive 26x1.25" slicks that work well for me. I think they're rated to 90 lbs. They've been pretty good in my urban environment until a couple weeks ago on a short jaunt, where I somehow managed to find the only goathead bush in the city. Got five holes somewhere along this one mile stretch, with four of the goatheads still in the tires. Over the last ten years in this city, I've never seen a goathead here, so it may have just been a fluke. A heavier tire may or may not have survived, as those thorns were pretty mean.
Funny that you mentione goathead stickers. When I was a kid we just called them "Puncture vine" stickers. We called them puncture vines for the reason that they went throught every bike tire that you could put on, and gawd forbid that you step on one. I never heard the name "goathead" till about 10 years ago!
There were always some of those stickers around, but never bazillions like I seem to see now. The fields around our house were disked (plowed)to keep weeds growth down every year right before the sprouting puncture vines could flower; this kept the numbers down. Now they mow the weeds down, which allows the flat-growing puncture vines to flourish. Yuck.
Oh, and as not to hijack the thread, I run GEAX slicks on my la bomba bike; I think they are 1/25. Haven't had a flat yet, and they seem to track well.