I have a teammate who is adamant about always keeping his tires pumped. His hypothesis is that a fully inflated tire is harder and is more likely to fling off a shard or wire that would otherwise grab on and eventually work its way through. He hasn't done any rigorous testing but it seems reasonable to me.

On my commuter, about 1 flat/1000kms, that's about 6-7 flats per year. Most by glass shards, nails or tire wires.

I started using Schwalbe Marathon (and Marathon Winter) tires well over 10,000 miles ago on all my bikes and I haven't had a flat since. They're very heavy, and I know for a lot of people that's a deal breaker, but for me it's been a great trade-off.

In 5 years and over 15,000 miles of riding, I have only changed 2 flats out away from home. Once on the side of the road, and once outside a business as I found my rear tire flat when I came out from buying stuff. The other times I was either close to work or home and walked it, and once I made the call of shame to my wife since I found the tire flat after coming out of the grocery store and didn't have a tube or pump with me.

That is one option, given your assumptions.

In reality, I'm a pretty aggressive rider - riding a road or CX bike like it was a mountain bike. Sometimes I hit hard bumps that are more than 1" deep. at 20+mph in traffic, I'm gonna hit some potholes (rather that than a car). As for using arms and legs - well it those occasions often involve catching air, so I'm not exactly a "sack of potatoes". LOL! I don't baby my bike.

I didn't get a lot of pinch flats (its not "that many pinch flats"), its just that with the tires I'm using, it is unusual to get something through the tread. The tread can get pretty sliced up, but its unusual for me to actually get a puncture.

But yeah, pinch flats don't exist when you roll tubeless.

I know right??? And its time for my commute home...

I use Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours, uber heavy, and probably a harsh ride, but they only flat about once every 3,000 miles in the harsh city environment where I commute.

Nothing else I've tried including Gatorskins, Gatorskin Hardshell, Top Contact IIs or regular Marathons holds up as well.

I'm a teacher, late for work for me means I have 25 kids piled up outside my classroom door when the bell rings. I try to leave myself an extra 20 minutes on the ride in in case of a flat but that doesn't always happen. So I'm all about no flats.

That is a nice trend, what are you doing differently the last couple years?

Just because you catch air doesn't mean that you aren't a sack of potatoes in the saddle. I've seen lots of people who can get airborne and come down like a ton of bricks. I'm a big guy who rides very aggressively. That doesn't mean that I bottom out rims with any regularity nor that I land jumps with a thud, however. It's all in the way that you use your arms and legs to absorb the impact.

I do baby my bike but not by avoiding impacts. I do it by assuring that the impact is as minimal as possible on the bike. Even on a full suspension bike, I take more impact with my legs and arms than the suspension system does. That's because my suspension system (i.e. my arms and legs) have more travel than the bike's suspension system does. If the only "suspension system" the bike has is a relatively small volume of air in the tires, it's even more important to use your arms and legs rather than trying to deflate the tire enough to give you some "comfort".


Pinch flats may not exist for tubeless but rim damage and tire damage certainly do. A pinch flat is an inconvenience. A bent or broken rim is a much more costly disaster. One costs you a few minutes and a $0.30 patch. The other may cost hundreds of dollars depending on your wheels. The reason that you "cringe" when you feel the wheel bottom out is that you know this without really thinking about it.

Yeah, good question, and one I've been pondering as well.

The big decline in flats a few years ago coincided with my office moving, as a result of which I stopped riding my folding bike on a regular basis. The smaller wheels seemed more susceptible to punctures (I know that doesn't make any sense). Maybe I'm just using better tires (I don't think that's it either). Maybe I've ridden over those roads so many times, my tires have cleaned up all the crap that would be causing me flats. Or not.

I think it's just dumb luck.

[MENTION=200675]chas58[/MENTION], I'm with [MENTION=21724]cyccommute[/MENTION]. Pinch flats come from doing something wrong. Most likely, I think it's insufficient pressure. Riding technique weighs into it. I don't buy that having inner tubes leads to pinch flats. I just don't consider them inevitable. I haven't had one in decades. It's possible that you hit bumps that no one should ride over, but I doubt that.

You are right, I hit bumps that no one should ride over. ;-) I'm not worried, I rarely get flats. I'm just surprised of often most other people around here get them.

I agree - inner tubes work great for many circumstances. Inner tubes don't cause pinch flats, but tubless prevents pinch flats and many puncture flats. Mountain bikers, gravel, and cyclocross have all gone tubeless, road riders tend to stick with tubes (mostly because tubeless doesn't work optimum with high pressure tires). If your tire is fat enough for the terrain and has enough pressure, inner tubes work great. tubeless is not for everyone. There are pros and cons to everything.

Apparently people here get flats much, much more than I get pinch flats (or any type of flat). So, I wouldn't worry about me too much. I would be more worried about people here that get more than one flat a year.

cyccommute, dude, you crack me up. You are making a lot of assumptions in order to prove your point. What you are saying is correct, they just don't apply to the cyclist you are talking to. Maybe it wasn't clear in my first post, but I go years between flats. If you want to lecture someone work with someone who actually gets flats.

Same here, except my students are older and may be sticking sharp things in people's mouths if I'm late!:eek:

I haven't had a flat since I changed to Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires a few years ago. In the snowy part of the year (Chicago) I use Marathon Winters and had some problems with flats caused by internal stud wear. Solved with "Mr. Tuffy" tire liners, and no flats now for several years. Knock wood!
Steve

You are the one who said that "90% of my flats were pinch flats." I have flatted more than my share of tires but pinch flats are a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. Out of the thousands of flats I've experienced, I can count on one hand the number that have been pinch flats and I know precisely why I got each one...they were all related to other punctures which were usually caused by goat heads that were slow leakers and some cluelessness on my part.
Even when mountain biking, pinch flats have been mostly nonexistent for me...they still count towards that one handed count...and, again, they are related to other punctures.

You are the one who brought it up and you are the one who also said you "still cringe when the wheel bottoms out". That sounds like a systemic problem as are most pinch flats. Tubeless isn't a fix to that problem if you continue to bottom out on impacts.

The other flats that people get are random events...even with goatheads...that really can't be prevented 100% of the time. Even tubeless is not invulnerable. Pinch flats, on the other hand, aren't as random and can most certainly be protected against.

And sure enough, a slow leak discovered this morning...

How slow is slow? Pump it up and ride on! Or ride a different bike and repair later. :)

Not that often to be honest, roads here are pretty clean and usually I have a good habit of avoiding glass and such

I notice I ride through a lot of glass which I can't avoid. I wonder why I don't get flats any more. I used to get a lot. I don't ride puncture-resistant tires.

On non puncture resistant tires, I'd guess roughly one flat per 1000 miles. Most of the culprits seem to be glass, bits of wire or other metal debris, the rare thorn, etc.

On puncture resistant tires, zero, except for one pinch flat (probably coupled with under-inflation), in thousands of miles.

For me, it's no problem to fix a flat while on the road, and it takes a few minutes. But puncture resistant tires aren't all that expensive, and there are times where I can't be late to an appointment or meeting.

Ever since I switched to Schwalbe Marathon Plus on most my bikes I did not have a flat in over 2 years. I am riding about 60 to 100 miles per week. Mainly commuting.

No kidding. I was averaging 10 miles/tube this summer until I replaced the tire with the hidden glass fragments. It had been quite a while since I had a flat before that too, and I guess I was too confident in my ability to replace the tube at the trailside.

I know, you are just trying to help. That is an honorable thing. Its all good...

Do you know what caused it?

Yeah, those can be a bear to find. My toughest one was a little tiny wire the size of a hair. I could ride on it a couple of miles, but couldn't make it to work. I had to keep the tire/tube aligned, find the hole in the tube, and then find the matching part of the tire. Took me about a month to find it. Even when I knew where it was it was hard to find. It always found the tube though!

I'm in my 3rd year of full time commuting. I think that I've had five flats...so, math says >1. Now that I have Schwalbe Marathon Plus on my main commuter, the # of flats = zero. But on my other road bikes with thinner, more supple tires, flats do happen occasionally. Meh. The last one might have been back in the early Spring or so. It's now a distant memory.

Not saying that you don't repair tubes but this alone is a good reason to repair flats. How are your going to find that offending piece of glass if you just replace the tube? We recently got a donation of about a dozen tubes from one person at my local co-op. All of them had a puncture in the same spot...on the inside of the tube:foo: If the guy had repaired the tube, he might have found the problem before blowing roughly $70.

I usually replace the tube since they usually last me so long, this was a longer and more frustrating than usual experience for me with the glass being hidden in the tire. I now know about using a poking tool to look for those pieces, as well as have a newer tire with flat protection.

My worst flats were from a broken wire in the sidewall of a tire that hid back inside the rubber when I was looking for it. I didn't know some tires had wires in the sidewall! Went through all three of my spare tubes that day and had to patch one tube on the side of the road when I finally found that sucker. Luckily I had a spare tire, and somebody had an almost full garbage can within 25 yards to dump the old tire in.


Second worse was a transverse cut in the tire, about 1/4" long. After a couple of flats in the same place (with nothing in the tire like glass shard or wire) I finally figured it out. The tire was flexing enough while rolling that the cut was basically chewing the tube until it chewed a hole in it. IIRC I put one patch on the tube, and another on the inside of the tire, and rode the tire until it was worn out (the rest of the way).

Bike 1: (700x35c) a flat caused by rim tape tear. Bike was 3+ years old.

Bike 2: (700x38c) a flat caused by tiny glass embedded in the tire. Also 3+ years old.

Bike 3: (700x30) Flat caused by a 5mm cut in the outer tire just last week, new and better bike only 9 months old. :(

That's all I have to report. :)

I don't get any in Japan because people don't throw trash on the ground, much less break bottles anywhere and every where. Also, the street crew sweeps the bike lanes regularly.

With that said, on a trip to the US I did see a pickup truck driving slowly with a guy hanging off the side using a leaf blower to clear the lane.