acidfast7

My tyres / tubes are beat up and I often have constant slow leaks (pump it up once/month or so).

I don't often get flats (maybe 1/year or so) but the streets here are terrible.

subgrade

Haven't had a flat for 6 months now (3000 km). I'm running 700x38 Schwalbe CX Comp at ~50-60 psi.

cyccommute 

That’s not a slow leak. That’s just diffusion.

Unless you run your tires at low pressures, impacts seldom cause flats. And the solution is fairly obvious.

acidfast7

I agree with diffusion. That's correct.

I don't agree here. It's usually impact with glass and the tyres get sliced open. More than 12 pubs/mi2 results in a lot of glass on the street. So do broken car windows.

Perhaps my streets are terrible commentary isn't totally correct and it's a combination of terrible surfaces and glass/debris covering them. It's more slices down to the green belt than anything else.

cyccommute 

That’s not what most people would characterize as an “impact”. If you want to call rolling over glass an impact then getting flats from goatheads would be called an “impact” as well.

True “impact” flats result in snake bites caused by pinching the tube between the tire and the rim. They are indicative of low tire pressure and can result in far greater damage to a wheel then a simple “flat”. Tubeless people gush about how they don’t get snake bites but they say nothing of bending rims which is the real low tire pressure problem.

Your streets aren’t any worse than streets anywhere else. Broken glass and potholes are a way of life everywhere. On the other hand, you don’t have to deal with goat heads.

acidfast7

Thanks for the clarification.

noglider 

I'm so glad we don't have goatheads here. I don't think I've ever seen one in person (in goat?).

acidfast7

Even though I don't boast about it much on here, I commuted for 7 years in rural Texas and goatheads were very common. It was the major reason I ditched the roadbike with drops for a hardtail MTB. I suppose that I could have simply switched tyres/tubes on the road bike but enjoyed using the MTB around Austin and Brazos county when I wasn't commuting to the lab. It stuck with me when I moved to urban Europe where flat bars are very, very useful when one lives car free.

Having said all of that, I feel that the streets in the UK are much worse than anywhere else I've lived. It's essentially uncovered raw aggregate that the cars compress simply over time. After a new street is laid, two flat groove appear wherw people drive then the smoothness spreads out but never to where the cyclists ride. Essentially it results in the uppermost surface beibg solely composed of rough small stones that do a number on tyres. Never seen anything resembling asphalt / blacktop in the UK. Also, a good chunk of my current commute is on concrete or brick (bikelanes) both of which are miserable and by far the worst out of any commute I've had anywhere.

Thus, I humbly disagree with the previous poster that surfaces are all the same as it sounds like they haven't lived/ridden on many surfaces and are pulling from a very shallow well of experience.

It should also be said that I consider this thread is complete in my mind as others don't have a large enough knowledge base to contribute so I will no longer reply unless someone does some actual surface analysis.

cyccommute 

Congratulations. Now you only have another 30+ years to go. I’ve been commuting and riding and touring and mountain biking in goat head country for more than 40 years as an adult rider and probably closer to 50 years if you include growing up in the center of goat heads.

Yes, we’ve heard it before. You are like the kid who says “but when I was in California...” We in the US are not unfamiliar with chip seal, which is the actual name for what you are describing.

And I would doubt that the UK is the hell hole you describe. I’ve been there. The roads weren’t all chip seal. No road I was on was chip sealed at all.

And here we go again. First there is nothing “humble” about your disagreement. But let’s compare bicycle CVs shall we? I’ve ridden about 200,000 miles on road bikes, mountain bikes, and touring bikes. I’ve ridden about 100,000 miles commuting over mostly the same roads day in and day out as do most commuters but they change constantly. I’ve toured in 48 of the 50 US states, Canada, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. I’ve ridden about 20,000 miles of unsupported touring which, for the uninitiated, means not having any experience with what is around the next corner for 99.999% of the routes I’ve taken. I have no idea if the road ahead is under construction...that happens fairly often...or potholed...that happens even more often...or chipsealed or even paved. Mountain bike miles...roughly 50% of my riding...is usually done on surfaces that aren’t paved nor even graded.

I’ve also ridden in a lot of major cities...Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, St. Louis, Knoxville, Denver (of course), Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Seattle, as well as others.

That’s my “well of experience”. I assure you that it wide and deep. I’ve seen lots and lots of paved roads, sealed roads, potholes, glass, thorns (other than goat heads), rocks, mud and more rocks. I know what roads look like in a whole lot of places and they all look pretty much the same. Some are good, some are great and some are worthy of being mountain bikes.

So, how does your “well of experience” compare?

Well if you have nothing more to contribute, perhaps your “well of experience” isn’t as vast as you think it is.

cyccommute 

I’d send you some but that would be worse than sending pythons to Florida.

robertorolfo

Can I nominate this for post of the year or something?

Also, I'd just like to add that the street I grew up on, right here in good old New York, USA, was chip seal.

banerjek

Number and type of flats is a function of conditions, tires, riding style, and maintenance.

I used to get 2-3 dozen flats a year using flat resistant tires (significantly less when using Marathon Plus). Never got a snakebite, ever. The reason I got so many other flats is it was along a busy highway that was never swept that passed by a dump so there was a lot of small glass and metal debris.

Now I live in Portland where roads are pretty clean. I ride GP4000s and get one or two flats a year. I've gotten a snakebite or two -- because I was careless and didn't inflate properly

I ride only 23c tires.

Archwhorides 

I tried 23mm for a period, no flats but trashed the rim. Today I rode 48mm, super-kushy, no flats yet but it’s a new setup

banerjek

This stupid thread jinxed me. For the first time in years, I didn't carry a flat kit.

Of course I got a flat and will actually have to fix it at a shop. Ugh.

groovestew

This spring, I've had two flats on two different bikes, about two weeks apart. Each bike was sitting in the garage when the tire went flat. In both cases, there was a single tiny hole on the rim side of the tube. The rim tape was intact in both wheels, and I could find no debris or anything that could have caused the flats.

One was weird enough. But two identical, unexplainable flats? How the heck does that happen?

AusTexMurf

Might try rubbing around the entire rim with a cotton ball. Anything sharp and pokey will snag the cotton fiber. This also works when looking for a small sharpie stuck in the tire. Trick I learned a long time ago riding pedicabs and fixing flats in the dark. Also, maybe take off the rim tape/rim strip and check it for anything stuck in it. While its off, check all of the spoke nipples and threads...

Skipjacks

This thread got me too.

I got brand new tires.

Put one on, pumped up the tube and plffllfflflftlftlftftfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff............................ tire went flat

Oh well....I had a brand new spare tube. Figured I'd patch the flat one and make it my spare and put the brand new tube on.

Put the tire on...pumped it up...plfflltsffftttfffftfffffffffffffffffffffff..............................brand new tube flat.

I'm not even sure what happened. I can't find any protrusions or sharp edges in the wheel. Best I can figure is I pinched the tube with the tire lever when fighting to get the tire on (tire did NOT want to go out). And I did it twice. Which means this thread is to blame.

Now I have to burn the new tire while doing a tribal dance in sacrifice to the cycling gods to rid the wheel of the bad juju.

chas58

Came home with a deep 4mm long hole in my tire the other day. Might not have noticed it, except that the sealant was still weeping out of it until it formed a scab. Its nice that we have the technology where flats have become a very rare thing if we choose...

tim24k

I get 2-3 dozen flats a year using flat resistant Kenda Kwest 100psi tires. They are cheap to buy and I find they last me a around 8 to 10k mikes.

I find 1.5” in width works best for the ruff chip seal roads here in the NW.

noglider 

2-3 dozen flats a year? That's two or three flats a month. That's horrible.

CliffordK

Yes, quite a few.

@tim24k mentioned 8K to 10K per tire, which is a LOT... A few thousand miles riding on threads?

But, it all depends on flat types, and miles ridden.

One would naturally expect a person riding 10,000 miles a year to have more flats than someone riding 1,000 miles.

It is hard to say, but I'd estimate that I get one flat tire every 500 to 1000 miles. Sometimes I'll go for a while without flats, then get a couple in quick succession.

banerjek

That, and riding conditions as well as maintenance.

Debris, wet, and dark all boost the number of flats since hitting more stuff, having stuff hidden by water/darkness, and having it lubed definitely leads to more flats. Likewise, regularly inspecting tires and removing shards and bits of wire before they work themselves all the way in makes a big difference.

Tire type also definitely matters, but the only way to get no flats is to ride only clean roads -- all tires can get flats.

greg3rd48 

It all depends on the year and how long I am willing to keep riding on slowly deteriorating tires. I have had either 5 or 6 so far this year if I recall correctly and they have all been on my commuter that wears Panaracer Gravelkings 32mm. The rear tire is quite worn and it caught up to me tonight. I was heading into work at 930PM when I suddenly felt that now too common bouncy feeling emanating from the rear wheel. Another in and out flat. I quickly patched the tube and was on my way again in 15 minutes but this flat fix at night has convinced me it is time to replace the rear tire at least. I did make it to work on time though.

Phil_gretz

I wrote over in the poll thread:

"I'd estimate one flat every 700 miles or so on those bikes. That would be four or five per year. Still, it's no big deal."

All of those are on more narrow 25mm road tires. I don't ride my MTB frequently enough to flat. My road commuter has Marathon Plus 35/37mm tires. Those don't flat. Ever. Period.

GUMK

No punctures for the 5 months I've had Marathon Plus (700x38) tyres on, then one yesterday (front), and another today (back) !!!

So 2 in 2,200 miles...or 2 in 46 miles (depending on your POV).

Maybe I should go back to my Schwalbe Citizen's.