Originally Posted by
reesd
What I am seeing is that my rims have a bunch of extra pairs holes in the sides of the rims in addition to the spoke holes. And for my last flat the hole in the tube corresponded to one of these holes. There are nine pairs in all and a picture is attached.
So my question is what are these holes and do I need to cover them somehow to protect the tubes?
Your bike has chromed steel rims formed from sheet metal. The holes are an artifact of the chroming process and allow the plating chemicals to drain from inside the folded metal. They do not cause flat tires. I would replace the rim strips with good cloth rim tape and see if that helps.