how often do you get flats
 

i have gotten 4 in the last 3 and 1/2 weeks. after 3 in three weeks i bought better tires cause i was sick of it, then today my brand new tire was destroyed by a medal thing i think i am just unlucky

I can go a couple months without a flat and then all of the sudden every bike I own gets one or two flats a week. I am in one of those periods right now dang it.

Never gotten one on my bikes. I've got about 900 miles on them so far. However, my car got its first a few weeks ago, around 800-900 miles. Will take it in to the shop to get it (the tire) switched soon.

I get very few from road hazards. My first year I got one from a staple, one from a sliver of glass. The 2nd year, one from a bit of wire, another from a sharp metal shard. I think that's it from road hazards. So it's been about 3 years since that kind of flat.

However, in ONE DAY I got 5 flats - because I had a bad rim strip in a new wheel. I had a valve stem blow out on me once. I had a tire rip loose from its bead last fall. I got a pinch flat this spring when I let a tire get low and I came across some really course gravel that I hadn't known was there. I had a patch fail on me once (got old and cracked). One time I wore a tire clear through, the tube poked out and popped.

Typically I get a flat about once a year, though as you can see recently it's not been for typical reasons. I just switched to brand new Schwalbe Marathons and I now have high quality rim strips and new wheels front and back, so it's possible I'm set for a while.

I only have one bike. Total miles is about 17400.

My wife gets many more flats than I get. Even when we are riding together on the same model of tires, she is roughly 5 times more likely to flat than I am. I chalk it up to the fact that I fix all flats so she has less incentive to watch where she is going.

About 2 a year. I run Continental Ultra Gatorskins and haven't had...... uh, never mind

The rule around here is that we don't talk about _________ !

It varies, I've gone over a year without a flat, and then again, I've gone less than a second between flats.

The strangest was when I got a flat at one intersection in the morning and a second flat at the same intersection (opposite side of the road) in the afternoon. But I had killed a rat that morning before commuting and I attributed both flats to the rat's revenge.

5 in one day lol that is why i posted this so i would feel better about my luck:rolleyes:

1 flat which was on my Gary Fisher in 1 1/2 years. Well, I was putting new tubes on my Puch and one of them burst so I can count that too for a total of 2.
Ernest

I can recall only a handful of flats while commuting, going all the way back to college commuting days in the late '80s. I have no explanation for my good fortune.

On the other hand I've had 3 flats on a single century, two flats on two consecutive days touring, and a flat followed by a blown tube (poor tire mount) on one ride.

Let's put it this way--if I truthfully answer the OP's question, I'm guaranteed to flat on the way home tonight.

I have to consider myself fortunate, since I haven't had a flat in several thousand miles. I still couldn't call that last one a real flat either, as I broke a valve stem while inflating a tire, and I have switched to presta valves since then.

Yeah, and the first one was 18 miles from home, 3 miles from a meeting I was heading to, and 5 miles past work. I didn't know what a bad rim strip looked like, I had two spare tubes and a patch kit but couldn't make anything stay. The tube would pop as I was pumping it up. I wound up walking 5 miles back to work.

It blew the last 2 times on the way home from work. I was an hour late. That was the day my wife made me go get a cell phone. Luckily prepaid phones are dirt cheap, because other than for emergencies I wouldn't bother having one.

+1 I am just coming out of one of those periods. I got a flat everyday for a week. It has now been a few days, so I hope I am safe for a while. I usually go several months to a year without a flat. I hope I don't jinx myself.

2 flats in the last 1600 miles. Neither one on the road

# 1 the bike was sitting in my foyer for more then 24 hours since last ride. Tube popped at 10:30pm scare the pajesus out of the wife and I! Thought a water line broke in the laundry room on the other side of the wall. Old tube failed where it was stretched over a nipple.

#2 Broke a presta valve pumping up the tire on my Crit bike. :lol:


Now I have helped or fixed 4 flats in that same time frame...all on other peoples bikes. :roflmao2:

I went for a whole two years without a flat (well, without one on the road. I went out to the bike in the morning and it had a flat tire a couple times).

Lately I've had several of them for different reasons, including my first "in the rain" flat...

I've had two flats in four years, even though I ride pretty much every day. The reason for my "luck" is that I have fat, 80 psi 700 x 37 road tires; skinny, high-psi tires are more likely to get flats. (I hope I don't get a flat now that I've mentioned the unspeakable.... :innocent:)

I seem to have very few flats on my "everyday" bike and I have 700X38's on it. I think that's true, too, about tire size.

Like everyone else, I get them in bunches. Winter 2007-2008, I got about 6 (the source of the flat became obvious when I discovered the tubes were always punctured at the same spot....) and haven't had one since.

I average one per year per bike in 5k-6k miles per year in all-season, all-conditions urban commuting. One bike wears 25mm Continental Gatorskins and the other wears 28mm Bontrager Race Lite Hardcase.

8 flats this year.
Glass, nails, etc
5244 miles

I almost never get flats. My old commuter never once had a flat. My old roadie flatted a number of times until I identified the problem (crappy rim tape), and then never again.

About every thousand miles or so. Probably a bit more often on my road bike and a bit less often on my commuter. Most of the flats on my commuter so far have been with my snow tires which don't fit my rims very well.

My thought precisely!

i agree with you about the wider tires, but my the guy at my lbs convinced me otherwise when i was buying mine.... well it took 4 days to get a flat so i think i was right

2 so far this year. 3 in 2008. None in 2007.

so, all of you years without flats people who ride road bikes what tire should i get?

0 in the last year, since I switched to Vittoria Randonneurs (well, one tube failure, but it was a very slooooooowwww leak). The last two weeks I had Serfas Secas I got 6 flats. Before that I had a the Kendra Kontenders that my bike came with and I had two flats on those in about six months.

I'm about to tempt fate by switching out the Randonneurs for some racing tires. The Randonneurs have been amazing: Seattle's pavement is crappy as hell and I've run over glass, metal shards, ridden on a lot of gravel, and I've had no problems with around 4K miles on the set. They are heavy though, thus switching.

First, the first thing to do is track down where the flats are happening. If they're happening on the inside of the wheel (the rim side) you need new rim tape and a better tire isn't going to help. I've also had several flats right at the stem, and a better tire wouldn't help that either.

I personally have never had a flat on the outside of the tire since I started riding on Panaracer TServ Messenger tires, like these:
http://www.lickbike.com/productpage....=%271766-28%27

That was the first link I found - they come in practically every size possible, and mine came with a reflective strip on the tire.

Last week I was riding with a guy who had the Vittoria Randonneurs and he said he hasn't flatted on those, either. I think they're a little cheaper.

If you want really puncture resistant tire, though expect a harsher ride because of it, the two tires that get very good reviews are the Specialized Armadillo's and the Schwalbe Marathon tires. But like I said, ride quality suffers on those (haven't noticed a difference on the other tires).