slisk

Howdy,

I'm a road newbie with only 70 miles on my first bike. I can wrench a bit but all my experience is with motorcycles. I had two flats after a few days and noticed that in both cases the holes were along the seam toward the rim side (on the same tube). No rough edges appear in rim. Am I just unlucky, or is there something that causes this. I run about 110 lbs. and I remounted with some baby powder but I'm curious if the tubes that came with the bike are weak. I know that I should expect much more tire changing than with the dirt bike, I just hope I'm not doing anything wrong. Of course I have good levers and am careful not to pinch tubes (I think). Anybody else have holes appear on new tubes that are not caused by hitting things in the road? Thanks.

Slisk

Wheel Doctor

What kind of rim strip are you using? What rim is it?

Jude

slisk

Just the factory strip. The wheels are Alex 260. I checked the strips for anything sharp and came up empty.

Slisk

operator

Try not using levers to install the tube+tire. With a new tube.

Wheel Doctor

Rimstrips? Cloth. fiberglass? I ask this because there are some very thin red or green ones sorta look like glued on plastic banding but are very thin. They are crap and at pressures above 100psi they will indent the tube into the holes in the rim where you access the back of the spoke nipple. Volia mystery flats. In any case replace the factory tape with Velox, Schwalbe, Pedros or the plastic ones by Michelin work good too. Crappy rimstrips on new bikes cause a lot of problems with flats. What kind of bike?

Jude

squeegy200

Replace the rim strip with some Velox tape. It will cost you abour $2 per wheel. Worth it anyways, That will eliminate the rim strip as a source of your problem.

slisk

Thanks Doctor (and everyone). The bike is a 2005 Fuji Roubaix. Paid $899 for it new. I really like everything about it so far, sans flats. The rimstrips are made of a thicker rubber? material and do not appear to match your descriptions. I don't need much of a reason to go into a bike shop and will take the Velox advice. However, there's no way I'll escape for less than $5. Too much I want!

Slisk