For how long? No flats? Whaaaaa?
I get at least 2-3 per year, minimum. Of course, I ride a very bad route; bad roads, lots of debris and often get glass, nails, tacks, drywall screws (which almost went through my rim!), etc. embedded in my tires. And I use very tough tubes which do help cut down on flats. Except for THIS VERY MORNING when I blew a tire (yep, tire itself plus tube is shot).

This isn't a BF thing. Ask in any shop or ask any experienced cyclist.

BTW, 1200 miles is not much. You have just been somewhat luckier than average, a situation that will be rectified soon enough.....

I'm at twice the amount.....around 2500 miles (on my Raleigh hybrid since new).....with the same set of tires (also Kenda) and no flats. I've run over glass (several areas of broken bottles on road shoulders), nails (construction areas), countless goatheads. I only use standard tubes, but I use liners, slime, and the Kendas are the kevlar reinforced variety.

And I don't believe in jinxes. If I get a flat tomorrow it will just be random fate.....not anything to do with writing this silly post (I've written a couple others similar in previous months on various sites).

Know people wh've never had a flat in a dozen years on their bike . . . yup, bike has cobwebs on it and is stuck under a pile of stuff in the garage!
Flats will/do happen!

Yes, and a patch kit. I flat every 1000 miles, which is about every 3 months.

The worst was the day I flatted the front tire on the way to work. I changed the tube and managed to tear (ruin) one of my spare tubes in the dark. I put in the backup and went to work. On the way home the rear flatted. I walked 6 miles.

I'm sure the rear picked up glass at the same time as the front in the morning. It just took it another 7 miles to work in a flat.

After that I started carrying a patch kit too.

Aargh. I got a flat on the way home.

1200 miles isn't an amazing run for no flats. You'll have one soon, don't worry.

Get rid of your repair kit and you will have a flat on the very next ride. Or, quite possibly, when you do have a flat -- which you will, since you bragged about not having any -- you will find that the glue has dried out in your patch kit and doesn't work anyway.

BTW, not to put you down or anything, but 1,200 miles in 5 years ain't squat. I typically ride more miles than that in two months. If start accumulating some real mileage, you will get some flats. Comes with the territory.

No fence taken. I'm going to (two in so far) start commuting this summer so hopefully soon to change, but there have been whole summers where the bike did indeed sit for one reason or another. That's actually what I wanted to know - am I getting lucky or just not 'due' yet. It's starting to sound like I just might not be due yet, and now y'all are making me nervous about not carrying a tube.

Ok, let me ask then, is there any difference in tube quality whatsoever? It seems to me the kind of thing that's all coming from the same Chinese factory with different name boxes.

Absolutely. My last flat was a couple of weeks ago, en route from Brooklyn to Queens, via Manhattan (New York). Naturally, it was freezing out, and it was about 11:30 at night. I had no spare tube, only a patch kit and CO2 cartridges. No big deal, I patched the tube and rode on, but it's one thing to get a flat on a nice sunny summer day when one is riding for pleasure, and another altogether to get a flat at night in the cold when one is commuting and has to be somewhere at a particular time.

Seems like that's always the way it happens.

What part of the world are you in, and what types of roads do you ride on? I got 3 flat tires in my first 100 miles riding the mostly paved canal banks in Arizona due to the large amount of thorny & spiny crap that grows in the desert. I switched the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires and have gotten only 1 flat since then, and it was a slow leak flat, so I didn't even have to change the tire out on trail since it hadn't gone flat until the next morning. Still, my record thus far has been:

Stock tires: Average of 35 miles per flat
Marathon Plus: Average of 250 miles per flat

Where you live and what type of plant life and debris exists in that region makes all the difference.

Yup, there sure is.

Cheap tubes have variations in the rubber thickness (so they inflate unevenly, have weak spots). cheap tubes have large moulding ridges (which again creates weak spots). cheap tubes also seem to have crappy valves that break or leak.

I don't tend to buy Raleigh any more for this reason. Schwalbe, Specialized or Vittoria are ok. Geax are ok, and I think are actually made by Vittoria. These are the best low-cost tubes.

Whaaaaaat? 35 between flats? That's a flat every decent length ride! I guess you must be a tire changing champion by now.

Ummmm, eastern PA, good local trails that are packed gravel. Paved roads are ok with normal rust belt pot hole dodging action.

Someone else mentioned that the Kendas I'm running have kevlar? Without further evidence, I think I'll tend to look for that again. It seems to be working for me.

I have never won the lottery! (Does that mean I jinxed myself and now I will win the lottery) It should work, right ? because I can have anything I want as long as I say it has never happened. I have never understood that theory.

Actually, I got significantly more than 2500 miles (probably closer to 5000, but I normally get much less) out of my last tires before I got a flat (yesterday, as it turns out). Hybrids with larger tires, liners, kevlar reinforcement, and slime will last longer than most other tires. Also, if you don't ride in the rain, the incidence of flats drastically decreases -- you can see/avoid glass better, and the water serves as a lubricant.

Nothing is flat proof (unless you go to solid core). I've picked up stuff that would flat a car tire. You can hook sharp pieces of metal through sidewalls. I still think a few people here have jinxed themselves. I was in the shop yesterday and some guy mentioned not getting a flat for 5 years (though he put on few enough miles, he had only one set of tires during that time). Famous last words.

Murphy's Law is based on intent, so there is no way to make it work for you. Washing your car may make it rain, but you can't wash your car with the intent of creating the same effect.

A run like what ? If i dont ride my bike I dont get flats either......
I went 12,000 km on a pair of armidillo's before i got a flat though. But thats still less than a years riding.

Correction: my tires usually go flat when i just leave my bike for a long time anyways

Never had a flat...

I don't flat much, last flat amazed me it had been so long.

But you will have a flat, someday.

Well there's an ideal candidate for a future episode of Mythbusters. I suspect this notion of "jinxing" and murphy's law will end much the same as their pyramid power myth busting.

No justice on earth. I just got a brand new folding bike, 20" Schwalbe Marathon tires with a kevlar belt, PLUS I installed an anti-thorn, or whatever you call it, plastic belt between the tube and the tire, and I was so overconfident that I didn't even take a patch kit with me. About 12 miles total on the bike - and a blowout! - and a long walk home.

I couldn't even find any reason for the flat. Appeared to be some defect in the tube.

I flatted twice yesterday on my way home-with only one spare tube on hand. I'm jealous of where you ride. Where I ride flats are a fact of cycling.

(For those with a morbid curiosity, one sliver of glass in my front tire which I also just noticed needs replacing, one a chewed up piece of metal possibly from a steel radial tire that went through my rear tire.)

Someone explain to me why the hell I read this thread yesterday. You can, of course, guess how this morning's commute ended. Fortunately I was only 5 blocks from the office. Ugh.

Murphy's Laws
If anything can go wrong, it will.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.

If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Mother nature is a bit**.

I'm not sure that Murphy's Law mentions intent.

I've never heard of a name for the law you are quoting. In general I think it is "Good fortune will be jinxed by talking about it, bringing an opposite bad fortune." We could call it banerjek's law.

Obviously, this law cannot work by saying that "I have never won the lottery", because you cannot jinx yourself with good fortune.

Of course with regard to car washing, it could be argued that the extra moisture put into the sky by washing the car might just be the amount of water needed to push the moisture levels in the sky over the tipping point to condensation.

My take on Murphy's law is that it is less a law and more about expectations. At any given time there are are a near infinite amount of ways for things to go wrong, but usually very few ways for things to go right. At any given time we cannot or will not consider the incredible multitude of things that can go wrong that usually don't, and so when they do occur we over simplify and assume that it was the one mine in the hole field and we stepped on it. On the other hand I agree that left to themselves things do go from bad to worse. My lactate threshold is case and point - I left it and now its worse. This holds true for everyone except hardcore evolutionists - who believe that matter can organize and animate itself if you just give it an infathomable amount of time.

If we are going to go off topic, might as well go way off I suppose.

Since we're on the subject, and I'm obviously jinxed anyway, here's my latest run of flats:

6 of them on 4 occasions in the last 2 weeks. (yes, that means two flats on the same ride twice, both requiring a ride from spousal unit (aka team-car driver). I don't carry more than one tube, though I'm seriously considering it.

Two (three actually) of them were caused (I think) by running over glass on the path along the river on my regular commute. One was immediate, the rear, and the tube I had with me was unfortunately a short stem and I couldn't use it. Ride #1 from the team car. I missed the glass because it was mixed in with a lot of debris left behind by receding flood waters.

Then, the following Monday, while I had a new tube (and tire) on the rear, the front went flat as I left the office to head home. A co-worker who rides and is only four blocks away loaned me a tire, since we found at least 4 pieces of glass in mine once I got it off the rim.

To add insult to injury, as soon as I inflated my spare tube in the borrowed tire, it punctured, I assume a pinch flat. At that point I borrowed a spare wheel from her and rode home.

Then on Easter Sunday I punctured once on my way from home to the inlaws about 50 miles away. Fixed that one and then punctured again four miles later, thus requiring another ride from spousal unit. Got 40 of my 50 miles in though.

The sixth was actually the first, two weeks ago. That was also on a bridge not 50 feet (30 horizontally and 20 vertically) from where the path puncture occurred.

I've now got new tires all around on both bikes and am having much better luck (um.. until writing this). Apparently all were getting thin from trainer and harsher winter riding.