How often do you all get flats? I generally ride with Schwalbe or Gatorskins, but they to are not immune. First flat of the year yesterday, the culprit is that small wire in the pic (the bigger nail put a stop to one of my rides last year). About 8 of my flats last year were from similar small wires. Where do these come from and how do they always make it into my tires!!? Anyone else experience these little pesky problem makers?



I am ready to rig a roofing cleanup magnet to my bike to perform regular passes along my route...

Auto tire steel belt, most of my flats are from the same.

I ride on MUP's and it's usually stickers

Set up the apparatus so you follow it and your problems might end. Although I once got a flat from a splinter of wood, so maybe it should have a torch on it too.

I'm told that they are from the steel belts in tires. I get them fairly regularly.

It's glass around here more than anything else. A few years ago someone even went to the trouble to sweep a ton of glass from an accident off the road and right onto the bike path. Sweet! Took months for it to be finally cleaned up, so I just avoided the area.

Anyone have success preventing these steel belt wires from giving you flats with tire liners?

i've been riding with tuffy liners for the past six or seven years. i still get flats from time to time, usually through the sidewall, but i've never had one of those wires from the steel belt of a tire get through.

Schwalbe marathon Plus Tires the puncture resistant strip is in the tire itself ,, Ive had Tuffy strip ends wear a hole in Tubes

My last puncture was last week on the Springwater trail just east of the Johnson Creek/Harney interchange. It was off all things, a staple but not a full staple, just one side. Luckily there is a bench there.
V

I haven't tried liners. Trying to pack those into a skinny 700x23-25 is something that I can't grasp. Always thinking the thing is crooked when installing. I have a pair.. but haven't used them! Picked one of those wires up while riding a frontage road on a road bike. Not an instant flat, became apparent after the bike sat @ home for a few hours. A real head scratcher to diagnose right?

Took the tire halfway off the rim finally, and using magnifying eyeglasses and my fingers spotted the culprit. Looked just like yours. Got some needlenose pliers and performed surgery. The main point (no pun intended) is to be careful while fishing around for those things. They could easily draw blood.

I wonder.. how do they manage to stand up at such an angle as to cause trouble? Always on the lookout for troublesome scraps on the road, yet...

And the things are so tiny they are almost impossible to see and avoid... It doesn't help that the morning commutes are so dark.

Trash trucks, debris from motor vehicle collisions, industrial waste trucks that carry baled metals etc. Do you ride on the shoulder? I stopped riding on the shoulder, and subsequently stopped getting flats. I try to keep clear of any debris piles, especially near potholes, as those ples could have stuff that fell/bounces off of the vehicle that hit the pothole.

- Andy

I do ride on the shoulder, which is almost a lane in and of itself. I don't dare ride the lane, unless passing a parked/stalled/slow vehicle, as the hwy is a four lane with a speed limit of 65mph. It probably doesn't help there is a landfill at about the center point of my 12.5mi commute.

Worknomore and Phlorida are probably spot on in there assessment. About 99% of my flats are from these tiny wires that are apparently from tire steel belts after doing some more digging, really quite annoying to say the least. I am going to try some liners with my marathon pluses and see how they fair.

Tire liners sound great. When i used to be a shoulder surfer, i'd get flats 1-4 times a year. Only flat i had since new bike and riding in the lane 99% of the time was due to improper re-mounting of a tire when i had a spoke replaced (rim side). Along with new rear tire to replace my failing kenda kwick trax, i'm contemplating tire liners since i'll be riding a lot more once new brakes and chain case are put on.

- Andy

As I understand it, the reason we get more rear flats than front flats is that the front tire tends to kick up stuff that the rear tire then rolls over.

Very small pointy things are the Achilles heel of any tire that uses a fabric-based puncture protection scheme (Kevlar, PolyX, Vectran, etc.). These high tech fabrics have amazing properties in terms of strength and flexibility and they're so tight you tend not to think of them as fabrics, but the reality is that they are designed to catch things rather than block them. This usually works well for things like glass and sharp bits of rock which have some width to their edges, but something with a very fine point can slip through the net. Some tires like the GP 4 Seasons have multiple fabric layers, which reduces the chances of a point getting through a bit, especially if the point can break off, but it can still happen.

Of course, the alternative is something like the thick strip of rubber that the Marathon Plus uses. That's great for stopping pointy things, but the downside is that they aren't nearly as light or flexible and you feel that (the lack of flexibility at least) in their rolling resistance.

The other problem with the tiny bits of wire is that they can stick in your tire and you might carry them around for weeks without knowing it while they work their way through your puncture protection belt. Again, having rubber thicker than the wire is long is the best protection, but I'd rather live with a flat now and then. I guess this depends on your local conditions, but to me it's like asking if I'd want tires that would stop that nail. I average around 4-5 flats a year, and most of those are with tires that are hitting their mileage limit and wearing out. I'm not going to use thick, heavy tires for 4000 miles a year just to avoid 4-5 flats.

Last time I hit a nail that big it went through both the tire and the rim...

I get most of my commuting flats from glass or screws. Oddly my car got a flat from a chunk of ceramic tile. Heavier duty tires do seem to help. I rode around for a day and a half with a hunk of glass in a Specialized Nimbus before I noticed it.