For those of you who commute on city streets, how long does it take before you get a flat, on average? I ride in NYC and some road condition is very poor due to bad construction work, pits and patches... I haven't got a flat yet after about 1-1/2 year. I never carry tire repair kits because I don't know how to use them at all.

I ride on arterial streets, so some types of flat hazards are very rare. Broken glass gets ground to dust by all the car tires, and other debris tends to get blasted out of the tire tracks. Since I take the same route most of the time, I'm familiar with the locations of potholes and can avoid them. Actually, I don't remember the last time I had a flat on the arterials, so maybe 2 years or more?

On the highway shoulder, there's shredded bits of tire casings (with steel wires) and broken glass from smashed beer bottles. I had a flat out there early this month, in the process of riding over 1400 miles for the May distance challenge on Strava. No big deal, sat down and threw a new tube in. You should learn that skill, it's easy enough and will eventually come in useful.

I ride in NYC too, and I'd say I've been averaging about two flats a year. They were more infrequent when I was riding Gatorskins. Now I ride Jack Brown Greens. It's really not so bad because I do always carry a patch kit and a pump, and I can usually get back on the road in 5 minutes.

Fixing a flat is a good skill to learn because I've found that other NYC cyclists are often inhuman monsters. While I've stopped to help others fix their flats, I've never had anyone do so for me. Once I got a flat on Prince St during the morning rush hour, and all I needed was a new tube of glue because mine had dried out, and I could not flag down any cyclists at all in 20 minutes. Most people just rode by ignoring me as I asked them whether they had a patch kit.

All depends on whether they were throwing away Bottles or Cans the nights before.

I average about 2 flats a year on my commuter and we get a lot of broken glass and goat heads here, Big Apples seem to be pretty puncture proof though.

Here in columbus the strees are very clean. I have had only 1 flat in 1 year due to rem strip not trash on the road.

I'm not answering that question...I don't want to tempt fate!

Riding 300km a week I get 2-3 flats a month. I ride bike trails, gravel, and on the road/shoulder. I carry 2 spare tubes and a full repair kit on a long ride, and a spare tube and minimal tools on a commute.

+100 to learning how to repair a flat. It is easy to learn and easy to do. I have seen "well versed" individuals change a tire. In 5 minutes from flat to riding again. 15 I would suspect would be a standard time for someone not doing it regularly.

Ummmm....4 years. SMP user.

I also ride in NYC and use puncture resistant tires and I get maybe one flat a year if even. I had a really bad luck in March though, I had three flats in one month! But as always, the first flat was caused by a legit reason and the remaining two by stupidity: I didn't examine the tire well, and there was a tiny piece of hair-thin wire in the tire that caused the following two slow-leak flats.

Also, the flats seem to more likely to happen on lousy, wet and cold days

That makes two of us. Most of my flats occurs in the winter. The street Sweeper sweep the street less during the winter months. All those roadside broken glass and debris ends up in the Bike lanes. During the summer months, I can see a difference in the amount of junk in the Bike Lane the day before and the day after the street are swept.

I get about one-two flats a year. I still carry a repair kit, though, because when I do get a flat, it's usually at a time and place when the only person who can fix said flat is me.

I think big, wide, squishy tires are much less prone to flats than skinnier tires. I've gotten a lot more flats since I switched from 37mm to 28mm tires. I'm seriously considering going back to the 37s.

2 per year probably.

Must be some law of physics, I guess

1st flat at 96 km total

no second flat yet

current bike total about 800km (all city)

800km/1 flat = 800km/flat ... average speed is roughly 20km/h in the city = 40hr of riding

i get 1 flat / 40hr of riding

Fixed it for ya.

3 years? I use Micheline Pro 3 and Conti. 4000S on my road bikes and Micheline Jets on my CycloX bikes.

My commuter fixed gear bike uses standard Kenda Kwickroller Sports.

I pump before every ride.

EDIT: I do about 10,000Km per year. That includes Road training and daily commutes.

I think having flats correlates better with posting that you haven't had one, than with miles ridden. Seriously.

Also, OP, you really should learn how to patch a flat. You will have a flat, and it may be completely random.

I think it's more about miles than a period of time.

I find that I average about 4-5 flats a year, but it varies. Some bikes and tires flat more, some less.

For me it varies from once every 500 miles, to once a mile. I can't really put an "average" to it. Carry spares, tools and learn to use them is the best advice I can give.

I think I went over a year once. I've also had several flats in a day. There's no guessing. Be prepared.

This is my third or fourth summer on my current bike, and so far it has only had a single flat. So, IME, 1.5-2 years is about average. I'm probably due.

Aside from a brief spate with my mountain bike when the rubber was cracked and every fleck of gravel would cause a flat (took me a week of this to get around to replacing the tire), I've never found flats to be a big problem, or even an annual problem.

If your route takes you to places that would take a long time to walk out of and access public transit or a ride, it's worth picking up a flat kit and learning how to use it. If you can just lock up until you have time to take the bike into the shop, then you're probably good.

My flat kit has more experience fixing other people's tires than my own.

It's going to vary a lot depending on the amount/type of road debris that you encounter, your tires, and the age of your tires.

I've had two flats within the last year, both on the same day, and within 500 yards of each other. I had noticed a few days before that the tires were starting to look a little worn. I should have swapped them out right away but put it off and paid the price.

Something similar happened to another set of tires I had. They were great for two years, - no flats at all. Then I got two or three flats within a couple of weeks and I knew it was time for them to go.

Some tires have flat protection built in. Especially with skinny, high pressure tires, this can make a big difference. The stock tires on my road bike had no flat protection and it seemed like I averaged about a flat a month with those.

It's been awhile since my last flat tire that was cause by road debris, maybe 5 years or more. My recent flats were all at home, either from improper tire installation, improper rim/tire sizing, or broke tube stems while inflating the tire.