I have been riding in Chengdu, China, for 34 weeks now, and have covered 3500 km, and have never had a puncture.

I was using standard Giant tyres and tubes for a while, but a couple of weeks ago I changed the tyres for some 1.5" ones. I have no kevlar inserts.

When I rode in Hobart, Australia for a couple of years, I got 4 punctures in my first 1500 km, and went out and bought kevlar liners for the wheels. After that I got none.

I think the lack of punctures I get in China is due to the armies of orange overalled street sweepers that clean the roads in the wee hours of the morning.

How often do you get punctures, and if you get none, why do you think this is so?

z

Well, you've doomed yourself by bragging on how you don't get punctures.

I've had a variety of luck with milliseconds between flats to years between. It all boils down to road condition and tire condition.

In the last year I've had two punctures. One of them was by a small rock, the other was a 1" nail that logged itself through the tire and into the rim.

jinx thread

I refuse to answer the question for that very reason.

I can count on 3 fingers the number of times I've flatted while riding. Oddly, it seems to happen every 10 years. Once in 1989, once in 1999, and once last year. I've ridden well over 100,000km over those 20 years. I guess I'm just lucky (although, now that I write this, I'm dooming myself to flats in perpetuity ). Honestly, though, I don't think it's that hard. In my case, I'm light (63kg), ride with relatively wide tires (700x28 to 700x37), buy good quality tires with flat resistance, change my tires whenever they look worn, and try to avoid glass and other debris. Over the years, that formula has worked well for me.

In 2.5 years of commuting daily, I had 3 flats, including one on the first day when I blew out what was clearly a dry-rotted tube. After the third flat, I upgraded most of my tires (I have 4 bikes) to schwalbe marathons of one variety or another and then went nearly a year before my next flat. I have since gotten two more flats in the following two weeks and am starting to get paranoid. The last two flats were on the same tire which clearly needs to be replaced (new marathon is on its way!), but I still find it odd that they have all come in such a cluster.

You just broke the first rule!

Now you are doomed to get flatulence!

Do not taunt the p***ture fairy

Well, got one. Had about 4400 km on the clock.

It was a small nail, but I didnt find it until I was all kitted up and picked my bike up to go for my morning commute.

That was on a Friday. I caught a cab to work and had a casual Friday.

The next day, after a long Friday night I had arranged to meet some people for breakfast then a ride. I just swapped the tube out with my spare.

That morning a friend who works with me was riding to work and got one. She got her tube fixed and we went for our Saturday ride.

Well the patch came off. Strangely we couldnt find any puncture repair places (they are everywhere in China), and my spare was on my bike. However one of our group found a place selling tubes and I put that in her bike.

I have found some green plastic inserts to put between the tube and tyre. I havent put them in yet, but will do so later.

I always commute with a tube, levers, spanner and pump.

z