My last set of tires I bought were the cheapest I could find at my LBS; I was getting flats everyday from the smallest things -- unbelievably small bits of wire.

So I decided to upgrade my tires so I wouldn't waste so much money on patch kits. Bought Bontrager (700 x 38c) H2 HARD-CASE Triple Flat Protection. Well, I don't have as many flats, but I do get them periodically (but far from daily -- so that's good), but now they are from really big things, things so big they put a huge gash in my tire. No problem I just patch up the inside tire and all's good.

Until yesterday. I got a flat from what looked like a small nail, but as I pulled it out of my tire and inspected it, it turned out to be a piece of splintered wood, this was no normal splinter, very tough, but small -- about 1" long and had the diameter of ~2mm.

Question: What tire have you had the most luck with in preventing flats? BTW, I don't use those liners inside the tires; tried them with no luck.

i have used armadillos, hardcase tires, schwalbe marathon plus, and continental 4 season. i had zero flats with the marathon plus. armadillos tend to let in the wires from steel belted tires. hardcse tires let in small and large debris. had a huge piece of glass slice the tire but it was in the rain. the conti 4 season got sidewall sliced within a week and the new one same thing.

Vittoria Randos have served me well. They're inbetween Marathon regulars and the Pluses for flat protection, but ride much smoother. They can be had for a fraction of the price too.

Hardcases are terrible tires. I had a large pebble punch through, a stick, and the tire separate from the casing on two tires within 500 miles. They're useless if it's wet out too.

I can't believe your having so many flats. I commute on lousy, littered streets in a run down section of a poor town just outside NYC, and get 1-2 flats a year on generic tires.

Likewise. I used cheapo Bell tread-alert tires on road, gravel and occasionally dirt and rode all last season w/o a flat. For twenty bucks a pop I was twice as satisfied with the Wal-Mart tires than with the Bontrager ones I'm riding on now.

Gatorskins are my tire of choice

Schwalbe Hurricanes





Bought these tyres 5-6 years ago and have never had a flat riding on road, off road, in summer, and in winter and if you look in the second picture you can see the wear indicator lines running down the centre of tyre which are still deep.

I have a brand new Hurricane in my shop and if you put it side by side with the tyres on my bike you would have trouble telling which tyre was new and which ones had well over 12,000 km on them.

I have used this set of tyres on my mountain bike, touring bike, and cargo bike and love their ride, speed, and versatility as they are a fast tyre on the road and very capable on trails, especially in sand or on hard pack clay or gravel.

The guys at Schwalbe want my tyres to see why they have lasted well beyond their expectations... think the dual compound tread with the much harder centre is really what has given these tyres such a good life.

At 75 psi the contact area is more like a road tyre than an mtb tyre and this contact patch is probably where the tyre is most resistant to punctures... I have ridden through broken glass with these and never flatted.

A close second would be my Schwalbe CX Compe cross tyres as again... have gotten amazing life out of these and used them in every season on every kind of surface and over nearly as many miles as the Hurricanes... have had no flats and they still look nearly new.

I also run Marathons and have also put some serious mileage on these but unlike the other Schwalbe tyres, have actually experienced flats with them. Thinking that the marathon tread has a tendency to pick up / catch debris and when the debris is a huge chunk of glass it can and has worked it's way into the tube enough to cause a slow leak.

Might you be under-inflating your tires a bit?

Skinny tyres don't flat as easy (as long as they're pumped hard enough to resist pinch-flats).

They cover less road and the smaller radius is more likely to spit stuff out the side.

If you weigh less than 100kg and ride on the road, I have NFI why you'd need wider than 28mm.

Marathon Plus tires are ridiculous! They weigh close to 2 pounds and are the closest thing to a solid tire you can buy. Schwalbe actually advises using a pressure gauge of some sort to tell whether is has enough air, because pinching it with your hands tells you nothing; it's that solid!

I'm not sure if you were questioning me or someone else, but at any rate...I never allow my tires to get under-inflated. It's not something I have to remind myself of -- I can feel it in the handling, especially in tight, fast turns.

I have had good luck with Armadillos - no flats for the life of a set of tires until I rode over something so sharp it cut a 2" slice straight through the tread, casing, flat protective layer and tube

Since I moved away from the big city I have been using Maxxis CX tires (the Raze) and some other CX tires which I forgot the identity of and Vittoria Randonneurs. I have not had a flat on any of my touring/commuting bikes with these tires for a couple years now. But I generally ride on quiet country roads and dirt with not much debris.

+1 for the Vittoria Randos 700X32 >

"Question: What tire have you had the most luck with in preventing flats? BTW, I don't use those liners inside the tires; tried them with no luck."
--john gault

I have a hard time seperating bad luck and a bad tire.

On the whole I've had good luck with the Continentals I usually run, whether road or mountain and recently mounted the possibly last set of NOS GP3000s on the planet (I'd bought extra sets years ago.) I have a set of Double Fighter Duals that are still serviceable on my mountain bike, milage unknown.

I have to add I bombed a set of inexpensive 35C Forteza Gothams through a road construction area as I wasn't about to try and merge with heavy 40 MPH traffic without incident and hurry'g to stay out of the way of construction eqpt. No tire problem, but I did have to re true my rear wheel afterwards... I still think it's all about luck.

Brad

PS In the spirit of full disclosure... if I were on one of my road bikes w/23C tires I'd have waited 'till traffic provided an opening.

Some get flat's, some don't.

Those little wires are from steel belted car tires. It actually takes a while for them to drive through your tube so the best thing is to inspect your tires and pull them out with fingernail clippers. The wires are so small that a bit of liquid latex in your tube can stop the leak. liquid latex is in fix a flat cans for automobiles.

WANT

I hate how tyres look now.

Some get apostrophes and others don't...

; )

+2
I'm riding the 700x28 Randos right now. Once they die I'll move up to 700x32. I've been very happy with them, no flats. Very smooth ride considering the flat protection. I don't encounter many garbage/glass/wire hazards, but have to ride a lot of dirt and gravel roads. Also, not too pricey (relatively speaking) and I love tires w/ reflective strips.

Just for you Kimmo. About 100 miles on them in this pic:



Brad

The marathon Pus and Armadillos are about as flat resistant a tyre there is and everyone deals with different hazards so in some locales they make sense but I have never felt a need to run such a heavy and slow tyre when so many other tyres offer really good flat resistance and ride out better.

The Girl has Marathon plus tyres on her city bike and this gives us peace of mind... she can change a flat but when you ride a bike with a Alfine 8 speed with a full chain case changing a rear flat isn't nearly as easy.

I started using quality Velox rim tape with normal tires and tubes and rarely get flats. With the plastic rim tape I would get flats every month.

This is as aesthetically pleasing as road tyres have been. Gnarly tread pattern too.

Won't someone please make a skinwall again?

Amen, Kimmo. It was almost too good a tire? They easily lasted for 5k+ miles (8k+ km), great traction to the end and easy off/on in the case of a puncture. Yeah, they looked fantastic also.

Brad

Michelin kyrlion took me more than 2000 miles till I got my first flat.Next ride got another flat in the back and replaced with another kyrlion.This is partly on NYC streets!