No. That's when I stopped counting. I had many more than that. The wonderful Tribulus terrestris is an invasive plant from Asia that goes every where that the soil is disturbed around from the Great Plains to the West Coast. Probably came here with wheat. It has sharp woody seeds that can lay fallow for up to 50 years waiting for the soil to be disturbed or to be carried away. The nasty little buggers always sit with one spike in the air and the plant can grow to over 8 feet across and bear thousands of seeds. It's very easy to ride across a single patch of them like prathman did and end up with dozen of them in the tire. The damned little things can get through just about anything. Tire liners, kevlar belts, Slime, plastic belts, steel belts, etc will all eventually fail to protect a bicycle tire.

I laugh at broken glass. Nails? Piffle! Razor blades? Come on, that's not even trying. But goatheads? They have been know to make grown men cry.

But you haven't tried the Marathon Plus tires, have you?

Found them on Amazon and was reading the reviews. Some nice things said like 'paper thin.' Overall it was nearly a 5 star rating, but some people were complaining about them not lasting long and some said months or years. One person typed that they do last on the tubes he buys, but quit early on cheap tubes from used bikes he bought. He suggested they don't work well with some tube brands.

Anyway, first I've heard of them and that was interesting, thanks.

Glueless patches, by the very nature of them, cannot last as vulcanized patches. The bond that they form with the tube is temporary and will fade with time. For a frugal person like me, who uses his patched tubes for years, that means a new leak down the road, perhaps at a very inconvenient time.

We call em "Sand Spurs" in Florida. 63 in one Day ! I though I had a bad day once when I got 5 in 5 minutes I called Mommy (wife) to come pick me up.

BTW: I very much appreciate and have heeded the good advice received hear and another thread on patching.

What is your opinion of some who use alcohol wipes after sanding. (rubbing alcohol with glycerin?)

Is any one familiar with liquid buffers? How are they used and are there alternatives the average person might all ready have on hand?

Sandspurs are not the same thing as goat heads. We used to call them bull burs when I lived in FL. Like sand spurs on steroids.

Yeah, the final step in my patching process is always to throw away the patched but still leaking tube and replacing it with a new one.

I've started skipping all the other steps...

But you have to watch out for "buggy-engine exhaust".

Glycerin is a lubricant, so is a bad choice. Use pure acetone, and you won't have to sand at all. Remember, the point of sanding or cleaning is to remove the mold-release that's on the tube.

Sand Spurs (we have sand burrs here) are grass seeds and are totally different. Our sand burrs are incredibly painful when you get one in your skin but they wouldn't puncture a tire at all. Goatheads are a very low vine that are annual. They seldom reach heights of more than an inch but can spread to around 8 feet in diameter. The only thing good about them is that they don't compete well with other plants and will die out of an area as soon as grasses start filling in.

On the ride that I was doing there is no 'Mommy'. It's an 18 mile round trip into an area where cars aren't allowed except on Saturdays for about 6 months of the year and even then it's a guided trip limited to ten 4 wheel drives vehicles that come in from an entirely different direction than bicycle/hiker traffic. And the car folks miss all the really good archaeological stuff like this




The whole point point of the trip is to go down to see the dinosaur trackway





I'd not use anything containing glycerin on the tube. You are just leaving behind one substance after you just remove another. Acetone would work or even straight isopropyl alcohol (the alcohol in 'rubbing' alcohol). On the other hand, I've never used anything and don't have problems. I just sand the area and apply the vulcanizing fluid.

Once again, cyccommute has shown me the way to go. I just got three Rema Tip Top kits and a pair of Pedros tire levers for $13, with shipping paid to my door.

I grew up on Route 66 just east of Albuquerque in Tijeras Canyon. I know that cyccommute's tales of goatheads are true. I constantly look for something good here in West Georgia........I hadn't thought of adding "no goatheads" to the positive list. Thank God we don't have the thorny devils here. But, alas, it's still not enough to make me like Georgia.

3 plus months later, I am a total convert on patching. Amazing what happens when you know what you are doing. Cycocommute advice to wait wait wait for vulc fluid to set up and FBinNY advice to stitch stitch stitch have made me a patching machine. I am now running multiple patched tubes on my various bikes and not a one leaks. Thanks guys.

Yup. I buy cheap patch kits at the LBS and I don't do anything fancy, just RTFM and follow the directions. I might have had a patch failure in my lifetime but, if I have, I don't remember it.

I prefer to patch at home so I can clamp the patches while they cure, but the last couple I did on the road. I failed to find the flint that caused my front tire to go flat and was rewarded with another flat on the same ride. Fortunately I had a patch kit so I patched both tubes to rebuild my inventory for the ride home.

Fortunately for me I don't live in goat head country. If I did I might change my tube patching procedures. I generally only get a couple of flats per year so the time it takes to wait for the glue (pardon me cyccommute, vulcanizing fluid) to dry doesn't bother me.

Yeah I try to "knead" the patch a little with my fingers while it dries. I just keep pressing anywhere that looks like it might be a potential place for air to leak (like around the edges) and eventually the thinner parts of the patch start to look kinda translucent as it vulcanizes with the rubber underneath. Then, if I don't trust it, I might put a little more "glue" on top of the edges to make sure the patch vulcanizes...but if you do this you really really have to make sure it dries or else the tube could get vulcanized to the tire.

I use the patches they sell at the dollar store (with orange tapered patches for bicycles, not the ones for cars), even though they're probably the "wrong ones" because I figure if you can't do it with readily available materials then why bother? Heck, with the "right materials" you could brew your own tubes whole, so if you're gonna get the special special formula from the special special brand then why sell yourself short at just patching?

I've moved to self healing tubes and puncture resistant tires. That eliminates having to deal with trying to futilely patch a tube in cold or rainy weather - when even the best techniques are useless. Some things just don't make any sense to me. The concept of accepting that more than 80 flats in an 18 mile distance should be considered 'normal', completely escapes me. That's easy backpacking distance and going in on foot would be a lot faster than by bike, since clearly you'd be spending more time fixing flats than riding anyway.

Try gluing both the patch and tube and leaving them to dry overnight before putting the patch on the tube, just to show you can't wait too long.

I forgot a repair and left it for several days before putting the patch on the tube, and it held well.

It doesn't make it better to wait much too long, but I think it's important because it will free you to do something else instead of waiting, so the danger of waiting too little is much less. If you go do something for an hour after you glue your patch and tube but before you put them together, you will still have a good repair.

But do the self healing tubes work at higher pressures?

I just use kevlar belted tires front/rear PLUS a StopFlats2 tire liner in the rear (has to be that brand...others don't work as well) and the combination pretty much stops anything that can be stopped (for example, the last thing it didn't stop was a nail that went through both sides of the tire AND the aluminum rim ). Everything else, by definition, must be repaired.

That's a pretty open ended question since you didn't specify what you consider 'high pressure'. The tubes I'm referring to specifically are Michlin Protek Max tubes which are only available in sizes intended for wider tires than would be found on anything using current road brakes. However, most road hazards are found where road and driving conditions would dictate wider tires anyway. So the short answer is they'll work in pressures normally found in the sizes of tires they were designed for. Whether you think those are 'high pressure' enough for your uses is beyond me. I've never managed to put a nail through both sides of a rim myself - even with a hammer.

For riders that have to deal with goatheads, there's a tube sealant called Flat Attack that's based out of Utah, has been around longer than Slime and gets better reviews than Stans for that application.https://www.flatattack.com/

Goatheads are a fact of life in much of the western US and some of western Canada. We have to deal with them but you probably don't. I've been to the Picketwire about 30 times over the years and I've had rides where we didn't get any flats and the nightmare ride I detailed above. The number of goatheads in any given year are dependent on lots of different factors. Rain, drought, wet spring, dry spring, hot summer, soil disturbance, etc. all have an effect on the number and location of the plants that sprout. In the last few years there have been more forest service vehicles in the area were bicycles ride doing work that have lead to an outbreak of goatheads.

I do use puncture resistant measures. I've done rides where my measures did better than tubeless...I went the entire distance without a flat and the tubeless guy...with Stans sealant...had several flats. I've tried slimed tubes which didn't work and, personally, I find extremely messy to deal with.

As for mode of travel, feel free to walk 18 miles. Feel free to consider an 18 mile hike an "easy" distance. I don't consider it so. 18 miles on flat ground takes around 6 hours and this route isn't that 'flat'. The trip takes between 4 and 6 hours by bicycle not because it is a difficult bike ride but because there is so much to see along the route. If I walked the route, it would take the 6 hours of travel and around 4 hours for the sight seeing. That a lot of time.

And, if I wanted to hike it, I doubt that I would be posting anything about the trip in the Bike Forums

Lots of people swear by self sealing tubes like Slime or Stans or Flat Attack. I've never found them to be much more than messy.

I too have seen object driven through the tire and rim. It rare but isn't something you can really defend against.

I WAS CONFIDENT THAT A SPARE TUBE WOULD BE ENOUGH.

Last month, I got a flat on my way to work. I changed the flat one out in a few minutes. I had a hand pump and after what seem like more than a hunders pumps, I was ready. When I took the pump off the valve, the middle part took off into space. I was lucky that a woman came by and let me have a patch kit (tried to pay but she said no way and rode off). I did a quick patch just waiting until the glue was sticky and putting thumb pressure on the patch for a minute: it held. Another stroke of luck came by and inflated my tire with C02. Now I carry a new spare tube, patch kit, and CO2.