Ayup. I've seen that a few times, thought it was defective tubes. Minimal-cost manufacturing perhaps.

Never put off fixing a flat.

I hadn't had a flat in years. But never admit that. Bad Karma.

I noticed I had a flat the day before a ride with my friend, but decided to arrive early (had to drive to our rendezvous), but I brought my old Silca stand pump. Of course it was on the rear tire, Continental Ultra Sport 25.

I proceeded normally, pumped up to 110 and Pop. My friend arrived and gave me his spare tube. I double checked the tire and the rim. All clean. Pumped it to 110 - pop. Frustrated we drove to the nearest cycling shop in the country. They didn't open till noon, and it was only 9:30. We decided to call off the ride, and have breakfast. I ended up going to another shop and asked the owner to install the tube. He checked yet again, and no issues. As we walked to the cash, I leaned the wheel against the counter and....Hsssssss. The last time was tube number 4. It held.

I get a few good rides in and then I have a big event. A friend organizing a big cycling event with a number of rides from family to hardcore, and my cycling partner and I sign up. Our route is actually two shorter routes combined. We are transitioning from one loop to another, on a multi use path, and I spot some glass ahead. I call it out and point it out and go as far wide as I can. I think I'm fine, but as we get on the road and wait at a traffic light, I hear the dreaded hissssss, this time from the front. I didn't bring a pump, but someone came along and assisted. We couldn't get it as high as 110, but it was enough to limp back to the start.

So now I am reconsidering Gatorskins....

It appears the quality of tubes does not match the cost! I went through a number of Michelin's before giving up on them. The example shown on #400 was present too.

Has anyone had success on repairing that kind of failure? I would think a good adhesive would work short of vulcanizing.

2 days ago, I was riding home and all of a sudden there was the dreaded hiss hiss hiss. I pulled over and changed the tube after inspecting the inside of the tire. When I inflated the tube at home and put it in a sink looking for bubbles, I couldn't find any. It had a patch already and is now a spare but I am totally confused how a tire could go flat with a tube that holds air!

Three flats so far this year, all on wheels shod with Conti Ultra Sports. Most of my new tire purchases have been Rubino Pro III, tech, and g's. I think the Ultra Sports will be relegated to trainer duty.

In my carless days I liked that I could change a sew-up anywhere in any conditions (both weather and mine). All my bikes except the race wheels used Tubasti, lots of it on never cleaned the rims. Tires came off without damage, replacements stuck. (Yeah, no hard corners for a few miles.)

I took it for granted that I could change tires in the rain, when it was snowing and in the dark in bad neighborhoods. And that the tire was ride-able. It would get me home. How crooked it was didn't matter at all (at least not until I was riding in enough light to see how off it was!)

I tried the Challenge clinchers with their latex tubes. Wonderful ride but I had so many tire and tube failures I gave up. I now have an expensive pile of rubber I trust not at all. (Tubes failing at the junction between the main tube and the short valve section, beads blowing off the rims when I spent far more time getting them right than I ever spent on any other tire. If I go to sew-ups, then I might give Challenge another try. (I may someday go back to sewups for the wonderful feeling of security going downhill really fast. High speed flats don't cause crashes unless you happen to be cornering; always in issue. I've done my clincher-coming-off crash at 25 mph.)

Ben

definitely sucks getting a flat what are your thoughts on carrying a pump vs co2 cartridge to full up a new tube?

Pump, no question. It muzt be a good full-length frame pump. I can put 140psi in a tire and it never runs out of air!

I use to carry a full frame pump. Last couple of weeks I have left them at home. Getting to any decent pressure has been problematic for me with a frame pump.

With a box of 32 cartridges, I have a ready supply. Three are in my back pack along with patches tube and tools, including a small pump. My process is to remove the tube and replace it. But if I get another flat, I use the small pump to put air in the tube to find the hole.

After installing the tube, either replacement or patched, I use the small pump to get the tube in position, that is, to make sure it is inflated enough to expose any screw ups on my part with a tube sticking out of the tire, bead placement, etc. Yeah, my eyesight is that bad!

With 20-30 PSI in the tube, I then use the cartridge the rest of the way, usually taking it to 140. Yup, carry a gauge too.

I am about to launch into tubular experience once I get all the wheels sorted out and built with rims.

This is a tale of fixing the same flat for the third time.

I took the Grandis out today. Somewhere around maybe 10 miles out the rear tire went pfsst, pfsst, pfsst, pfsst... So I stopped, pulled the tire off, couldn't find an obvious leak at low pressure. But the tire had a previous cut and the patch I'd put on in that very spot had a peculiar burst appearance right in the center of the patch. Was it a second puncture in the exact same place? @rhm had one, so he said. That cut happened some time ago, probably during a commute, and I've commuted quite a few times on that bike recently.

So I swapped out the tube, pumped it up, and rode on. At the end of the MM Bikeway I popped into a LBS called the Bikeway Source and picked up a spare tube, then continued toward Bedford Center. I'd gone just a quarter of a mile when the tire made the same sickening noise. That was maybe 5 miles after the first stop. The new tube showed a tiny hole in exactly the same place. There is no glass or wire shard in that spot, just a hole. It would seem the tube burst through the hole, and prior to that the much thicker patch had burst through it too.


http://www.theworld.com/~muller/pics...TripleFlat.jpg

So I patched the second tube but pumped it up much less than I would have liked, then rode home with no trouble. Given the size of the hole from the inside I'm not surprised that it didn't like high pressure. If I'd been thinkin' I might have avoided the second flat.:o

http://www.theworld.com/~muller/pics...FromInside.jpg

Jim, do you know about tyvek? Cut an old express mail envelope into pieces about the size of a dollar bill (or a five dollar bill if you're feeling extravagant) and keep one or two of them in your patch kit. They make excellent boots for tire damage such as what you describe.

You mean the stuff they put under house siding? I'd dig into one of the wall of the house to get a small piece but I think our house predates its invention. In any case, if I'm going to splurge and cut a piece the size of a 5 I might as well splurge big time and cut a piece the size of a 20.

Unfortunately I didn't have any Tyvek of any denomination with me at the time, and truth be told didn't think of it anyway. Even if I did it wouldn't have fit. These were 23mm Veloflex Masters which are barely big enough to hold a tube. I'd still be struggling with it. :eek: Would have been late for dinner.

But that's a good suggestion. Thanks.

Saturday, my wife and I took a ride in the country. We went 17 miles, which I think is our longest ride together since buying the house in 2017. She got a flat, and to make sure she knew how to handle it, she just set right to work without my saying so. I had to give her some pointers, and she's still not sure she can do it without my presence, but I suspect she can. She wants to be able to head out without me. We didn't find the source of the puncture. My spare tube had patches on it, and she was apprehensive, but I told her most of my patches hold just fine, and this tube is working fine. She even pumped her tire up herself using the lame mini pump I had.

I patched the tube after getting home and put it back in my bag as my new spare.

We also took a ride on Sunday, but we didn't get any flats.

Speaking of flats, I took a big cut in a sew-up on my commute home a two days ago. Fortunately (yeah, right!) it wasn't a new one but an older much-ridden-on Vittoria which had already been patched twice. The rain from last week's monster T-storm had washed some decorative gravel from someone's sloping driveway out onto the shoulder, wicked, sharp-edged, purple stones, 1 to 2 inches in diameter. My front wheel caught one and instantly the tire became toast. I threw on a spare (I was carrying two), spent a few minutes kicking stones off the shoulder, then continued on home.

Any Michelins with the "Protek" and "Max" designations -- those have the 5mm Aramid puncture shield. The regular Proteks have a 1mm puncture shield.

Add the "Cross" designation for their thickest tread. The Michelin Protek Cross Max are the most bulletproof tires I've ridden, and remarkably smooth riding for such heavy tires -- the 700x40 weighs 1,100g. I use 'em on my errand bike. They've been through unavoidable mine fields of broken glass, construction debris, you name it. Stuff that has slashed the rubber down to the yellow fiber shield, but still hasn't penetrated to cause a flat.

I like 'em well enough that if I wasn't already so satisfied with Continental Speed Rides on my hybrid, and rode mostly pavement rather than some gravel, I'd try the Michelin Protek Urban or regular Protek with thinner tread.

I may have averted a flat last weekend simply by swapping tires.

I'd ridden a set of 700x23 Vittoria Zaffiros on my new-to-me Centurion Ironman for five or six weeks, long enough to be in good enough shape to blame the tires for my not terribly impressive performance. Despite the bike weighing much less than my Univega Via Carisma with rear rack and 700x42 tires, I wasn't much faster on the road bike.

I'd read that Zaffiros have poor rolling resistance so I ordered a set of Schwalbe One V-Guards in 700x23 (only $15 from Jenson). Very highly regarded tires with low rolling resistance, per 2014 reviews.

When I pulled the old tires and tubes I noticed a warning sign I'd seen before: dimples on the inside of the tube, corresponding with the deep nipple holes in the Araya double wall rims.

Last time I'd encountered this was about six months after installing a new wheel on my errand bike, with a double wall Weinmann rim to replace the original single wall rim. After a few months the thin rubber rim tape didn't provide enough support. The tube extruded through the nipple holes and the tips of several dimples had tiny cracks and slow leaks. I replaced the thin rubber rim tape with cloth -- Velox, Nashbar, I don't recall, they're all the same. No problems since.

One of the Araya rims had some ancient rim strip that was hardened and essentially bonded to the rim, effectively providing no support over the deep nipple holes. I tried using cloth rim tape and a new tube but the new tires wouldn't seat. So for now I'm taking a chance the new tube will last until I can replace the rim strip.

The other Araya rim had a newer rubber rim strip and no signs of extruding on the strip or tube. So I just mounted the new Schwalbes on both rims.

The Schwalbe One V-Guards are great, BTW. Very light rolling. I picked up 1 mph on familiar routes without even pushing hard and racked up several personal bests per Strava. Doesn't feel like I'm fighting the tires anymore.

But now I need to find some proper rim strips for both Araya CTL-370's to support the tubes properly.

Well today was a first, I think. Two flats in three days (one of which I didn't ride so that two in two). Today's was a glass shard through the tread of a Veloflex clincher on the Grandis. Fixing it was easy because it was so obvious, just pull a bit of the tube out, throw on a patch, put it back in, pump it up, and away we go. Almost as fast to fix as a sew-up and a lot cheaper! This glass thorn was big enough that it probably would have gone through a Gatorskin.

Over the last few weeks my commute has developed way more random glass than it used to have. I'm going to have to stop riding my spiffy wheels until it somehow goes away.

I decided to get out early today, so I could get back and mow the lawn before it got too hot. I left just before sunrise and was riding on a bike path that was basically a sidewalk with curb cuts at the cross streets. They were milling some of the cross streets and putting nice asphalt ramps at the curb cuts. That is all of them except the 2 foot section I hit. I ended up blowing out both tires. No problem, I have a spare tube, a patch kit and a pump. I patch the front tube and when attempting to pump it up, my trusty Silca decides to split in half. See photo. I ended up riding both rims 3.5 miles home. But, I did grab another bike and get my ride in. And, yes, I mowed the lawn.

http://i65.tinypic.com/a25chw.jpg

Flatted this morning on a tubular. Not exactly sure why. Cant find a hole and they aired up nicely. I did put some latex sealant in, just to be sure. Flatted a month or so on my Torpado (clinchersw) too. Baby's got new shoes now!
stuff happens.

If it was a latex tube it would lose air all by itself! Usually not all at once though. The trouble with that kind of flat on a sew-up is you don't know where to start unstitching it. Air could leak out between tube and casing and maybe not go flat right away. Even so, sometimes you can feel a bump, or put it under water and see air leaking out through the tread where a splinter of glass penetrated.

I did have yet another flat but this time not from riding.

I have this '87 Centurion Ironman with badly worn paint in the Miami Vice color scheme. Another BF member sold me the frame for peanuts so I built it up. With slightly touchy handling, a 172.5mm crank, and decent but not spectacular Araya red-label rims it is a good bike but not my favorite commuter. Mostly it has spent time in the garage awaiting its turn. A month or two ago I had pumped up the tires and then 15 minutes later one of the tires had blown up. Actually, it appears the bead separated from the sidewall. So I had put on fresh tubes and tires then let it resume its waiting.

In response to the recent commuting flats I decided last night to shuffle bikes around so as to ride something other than the spiffy Italians with high-performance (i.e. 'spensive) tires to work for a while. When I retrieved it from the garage I found (surprise!) a flat rear tire. Brand new tire, un-ridden. Brand new tube, un-ridden. I pulled the tube, pumped it up a bit, stuck it under water. It had a slightly constricted portion, common enough. A minute bubble clung to one of the seams on the inner surface at that constriction. Lots of bubbles tend to cling to the rubber but when I brushed this one away another formed. Aha! A manufacturing defect!

I patched it. Life goes on.

I don't know how many patches I placed on tubes in the last 48 hours. Funny enough, it didn't start with a flat but being forced to fix a failed AL nipple. I didn't realize the rear wheel on the Pinarello used AL nipples. I broke one a few months ago, maybe in the fall of 2016.

The separation was between the head and the shank. Anyway, after replacing 15 or so bad nipples and truing the wheel I installed rim tape, tire, tube, and created a flat tire.

There was a warning to this event. I have had challenges with inside puctured tubes as described in earlier posts in this thread. When I removed the rim tape to get to the nipples I found three layers of rim tape. The typical velox then a lager of black thick tape and then another velox tape. That was the warning.

The first flat was a result of the rim tape being moved when the tube untwisted during the first inflation. Yes, it was a used tape and didn't have a lot of effective adhesive. When it moved, it exposed the pocket where the nipple and end of the spoke are.....hole created in the tube.

This actually happened a couple of times before I realized what was going on. The tape was barely able to cover the pockets so it was a bit challenging. I even went to the extent of examining the position of the tape prior to inflation to confirm coverage.

Some of the flats were a result of failed patches. I was using the Park square stick-on patches with careful cleaning of the rubber to remove mold release agent and roughed the surface up along with letting it cure over night. Still got failures.

The next problem was that the tire would hold air and pressure for several hours, but after about 12+ it was flat. I typically put 140 PSI in the rear and 135 in the front. I believe the tape would not accommodate the 140 PSI levels.

The next attempt to solve the problem was to use Veloplugs. Unfortunately, I had the wrong size so I simply put the rim tape on top of them. They are good to 140 PSI. I think I like them but they are a bit expensive for what they are. I suspect they are produced in China for about a couple of pennies each but are sold for $25/72 count.

I thought the problem was diagnosed and solution in place until this morning when I went out to check. it was flat. While I ate breakfast, i removed the tube, I swear I will wear out the bead of the tire before the tread. Failed patch.

I will order new patches from a different supplier next. In the mean time, I have several other patched tubes I can try out!

I've always seen patches as a temporary thing after getting a flat in a mended tube years ago. After removing it I noticed the Park patch pulling away at the corners. That convinced me. I carry a patch kit, spare tube and CO2 inflator these days, and will only use the patch if I get more than one flat during the ride.

This works for me because I either am very, very lucky or just don't do the miles some of you guys (I'm looking at you [MENTION=190941]jimmuller[/MENTION]) do.

I will say that when it comes to tires, I've never had to learn the same lesson twice. I've had one sharp-edged rim strip cut a tube, discovered a displaced rim strip that - guess what? - caused a blowout, cut sidewalls so badly that the tube still tried to squeeze out past the boot, missed seeing/removing a tiny length of wire that punctured a tube, then subsequently did the same with the replacement tube (this was before I finally got reading glasses, tho, so partly it was a limited eyesight issue). The thing is, if I have any question about a tire or tube's integrity, into the trash it goes. Flatting at speed is not fun and can be extremely dangerous. Why roll the dice to save a few dollars?

DD

I suggest you try Rema Tip Top patches if you have not. I've never had one fail, and have been using them for decades. Modern patch kits seem to have declined in quality substantially. Many of them are just useless. I went back to Rema and found that they are as reliable as ever. I guess that should be added to the C&V vs Modern thread.

Also, I have noticed certain brands of tubes are more difficult to patch nowadays. Perhaps a different mold release chemical is being used then in former times, and/or the formulation of butyl rubber has changed.

Any substantial cuts to the sidewall result in the tire getting tossed. Not worth it for me. I'll boot cuts up to about 1/4" or so, but if there's any sign of casing distortion, the tire is history. BTW, any booted tires must be used on the rear only. Booted tires on the front may result in death, and I'm not joking.

Just ordered the REMA kit, 5 actually. Good reviews. I don't like to use patched tubes either but when they are $5+ each.....
the ones I am using now include new ones with no miles. Now that I have figured out the root cause, there shouldn't be as many.
I also order another set of Veloplugs, the right size.

Even the slowest of leaks will usually show up clearly if you use the underwater/bucket method IME. The tiny pin prick or thorn leaks can be tough to spot otherwise, especially with sewups.

Patched tubes are fine. Rema patches are good. I've had as many as eight patches on a tube before I can't use it any more. If I find a tube in my tool bag and it doesn't have a rubber band around it, that means I haven't patched it. This is my code for myself. I bind it with a rubber band after patching it.