Tires and Tubes?
 

Dumb question. When I started riding bikes 48 years ago were tires and tubes that much better than today? From about the age of 8 till I was 17 I road my bikes and never had a flat or leaky tire. I rode on road and off every day (3 speed stingrays and 10 speed road bikes which I rode off road) I was doing cyclocross before it was a thing lol. Fast forward to today I'm 56 now and read where people are constantly having leaks /flat tires and actually carry spare tubes with them along with patch kits . What gives folks?

Tires are lighter and thinner than back then and there is a lot more junk on road than before. IMO.

Modern high performance tires are vastly superior to tires of yesteryear. They are way lighter, grip better, and have less rolling resistance now.

This of course comes at the cost of puncture resistance.

You can buy modern tires that are more puncture resistant than tires of yesteryear, all at the cost of the performance benefits listed above.

Pick your poison.

Selective memory.

My mom suffers from it as well. She's convinced bicycles in her day never needed maintenance and nothing ever went wrong. Like Santa and the tooth fairy, her real bike mechanic was invisible -- her father.

With apologies to Ambrose Bierce:

Quote:

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PAST, n. That period of time in which our bicycling was carefree, our chains never needed cleaning and our tires and tubes were always full.

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I did all my own maintenance when I was a kid and young adult bicycle commuting -- tire and tube swaps and repairs, every chain cleaning, brake and gear adjustment. So I remember it all well.

And because I was in the Navy at the time I couldn't simply be late to work. I remember every flat tire because of the anxiety it caused. So as soon as the first folding tires were available in the late 1970s (back then recommended only as temporary spares) I carried one as a spare in case the main tire failed.

And I swapped tires often on my road bike, hoping to find something that was more puncture resistant and didn't weigh a ton. The best, or least bad, was a Continental with a raised center smooth strip that was a bit thicker, with the familiar shallow herringbone tread on the shoulders. Those tires were somewhat more puncture resistant, but felt squirrely on fast, tight cornering because I could feel the transition from the raised center portion and the shoulders. I skidded and crashed a couple of times on minor patches of sand that had never given me trouble before.

If anything tires are better than ever.

I remember riding in the late 70's early 80's on my "mtb" and getting flats all the time. If it wasn't a sand spur, tiny sliver of glass, or even a rose bush torn, the tube would sometimes fail from friction inside the tire. Though I also remember back then that carrying a extra bike tube was just crazy, all you needed was a patch kit and bike pump. Many tubes had multiple patches, and they all held up.

Now it seems crazy not carrying a tool kit, tube, and co2 inflator.

Well figure 7000 mile pper year of ridind, lots of 100 mile rides compared to a few rides around the block at 5 years old. I was 5 48 years ago.

I've had a couple of flats on the road this year alone. I'd been in for a nice long walk without a patch kit or spare tube. When I was a kid I never rode more than a mile or two from town. Now I'm riding 25 miles out. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

I grew up in AZ land of cactus and goatheads. Flats were normal even with heavy BMX tires and thornproof tubes.

Getting back to your point, the difference is largely tires. You can buy tires that essentially never gets flats, they are also heavy, hard and slow.

And I do remember having occasional flat tires as a kid. Luckily I worked for my dad at his service station so I could patch them myself whenever it happened.

no tires were a LOT better back then in the 60s as a kid I had a varsity that I put air in the tires once when i first got it and in 8 years all over san Bernardino ca and NEVER GOT A FLAT or touched the tires today its not the same BUT lately I have been using schwable HS 159 with tuffy liners and schwable tubes and in 2500 miles have not touched them

When I started riding again two seasons ago, it took me 2200 miles to have my first issue, a rather spectacular blowout. Granted, it then only took two weeks after that to have my first puncture. I don't consider that to be any sort of high rate of failure.

As far as "having" to carry spares? I don't "have" to. I simply far prefer taking four minutes to fix the problem and be on my way. Much better than to have to call someone to rescue me or walk home. All of my vintage bikes had frame pump mounts, and one had the original under saddle tool bag, telling me that the theory was probably the same even 40 years ago.

I carry a tube, just because I don't want to deal with patching roadside. I'll patch when I get home, as I did with that second issue listed above. Also, because there was no fixing the blowout mentioned above, that tube split a good 3".

haha interesting observation. true enough, '60s & '70s I would ride all day, quite far from home, never thought about a flat. certainly didn't carry all the cr*p I carry now

I found the same with MTB tires. I think MTB tires in the mid 80's were just getting started on lighter designs. I remember having a flat on most long rides. It didn't even take a thorn - I remember having a tiny stick cause a flat, not even sharp.

I think a lot of road riding flats is where you ride. I used to ride home from work on my race bike and get lots of flats. It was an industrial area with lots of truck traffic.
Now I ride in mostly residential areas and country roads and never flat.

I remember when a can of soda cost fifteen cents. What gives with the prices these days?

The bikes we rode 'back in the day' were a little different, too;
As a kid in the '80's, I rode BMX bikes, with fat little 20" tires. Even getting out in to 'the boonies' of SoCal, flats were rare, unless you hit a cactus, or something.
The 10-speeds of the '70s rode on 27x1-1/4" usually, which comes out to a beefy 32mm by today's 700c standards, usually seen on hybrids.

Like SquidPuppet said, those tires were designed for cost and durability, at the expense of weight and high-performance, but most consumers wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Modern drop-bar road bikes usually go with 23-28mm tires, that are lighter then the old-school, and capable of higher performance. Again the trade-off is that they're more expensive, and less durable.

BikeForums is also heavily populated with people who ride a lot of bikes, a lot of miles, more so than the average American. If you ride a few hundred miles a week, you're much more likely to get a flat, than some one who might only ride a couple hundred miles in an entire year.

Can of soda? I remember it in returnable glass bottles. It tasted better out of glass bottles, too. Maybe because it had real sugar back then, but I think a lot of it was that it didn't have the metallic aluminum can taste.

Find a Mexican grocer, and you can return to the wonder years.

I've seen young kids grind their tires down to the strings... Then only get a flat once the tube starts showing.

Perhaps a couple of flat repairs in the middle.

But, as mentioned above, they're typically only riding short distances around their house, and hopefully exposed to less road glass. The rear tire wears down due to skidding, of course. Remind them not to skid, and 5 minutes later, they're skidding again.

I think a 50 pound rider on low pressure fat tires would also be less prone to flats than a 200 pound rider on high pressure skinny tires.

From 1982 to about 1990, I was riding sewups. Many were "rescued" ex-racing tires that I got already flat. And, I'll say that over those years, I patched a LOT of sewups.

Then a few clinchers, and I was still getting flats.

I remember begging for kevlar belted tires 15 years ago, and only finding kevlar beaded tires.

It has just been recently that I've been able to find good puncture resistant tires. Still a few flats, but they're kept within reason.

Oh, those 27 x 1 1/4 tires of old were big, heavy, and slow. :eek:

Weren't those the same cans that so many people would pull out off the tabs and throw out the car window and collects in great amounts on the side of the roads?

HOW COULD PEOPLE NOT GET FLAT TIRES ON BIKES ALONGSIDE OF THE ROAD WITH THESE SHARP TABS ALL OVER THE PLACE........sorry......:innocent:

No al-u-minium back then. We used to buy milk in the half gallon jars from Cumberland Farms and return them to be refilled.

When I was stationed at Clark AB in the Philippines in the early 90's, the lounge for my unit's dorm building had a snack counter which sold Pepsi in glass bottles. It really brought back memories the first time I tasted it.

Our wide variety of bike tires and tubes will get you where you need to go with speed, comfort and style. We have road bike tires that propel you along the pavement with lightweight speed; built to tackle loose, hardpack and wet terrain; city bike tires and commuter bike tires, which are designed for the streets, greenways, or your local bike path. Plus, we have a full selection of mountain bike tubes and road bike tubes, as well as bike tire accessories to maximize the life of your bicycle tires.

I go back even further. In about 1947 dad bought me my first real bike. It had 24 inch tires. And then later I had a Monark Rocket with 26 inch tires. Both of them were ridden almost everywhere, including town streets, and I simply do not remember of flat tires either. And at that time I did all the maintenence on my bikes.

I wonder if there is one difference between old and new.

When were radial tires introduced?

Balding, out-of-alignment radial tires leave those needle like shards of metal on the road. Bias tires would not.

One fact:
The most reliable way to increase a bicycle tire's puncture resistance is to just use lots of thick tread rubber. That was true 100 years ago and it's still true today. The two tires with the best puncture resistance are probably the Schwalbe Marathon Plus and the CST Salvo, and (in the 26" x 1.75" size) they both use tread rubber that's around 7mm thick.

Various opinions:
Tire companies today have tried to create the impression that you can have paper-thin bicycle tires that weigh mere grams and that still won't get punctures--and that's not true, of any brand or casing material.

If you want less flats, get wider tires that have thicker tread rubber and run them at lower pressures.

Also it sounds silly, but don't ride in the gutter of the street.... I've seen a lot of people who aren't regular riders do this, because they're trying to stay as far away from passing cars as possible. And they're constantly riding in the gutter where all the glass and nails end up. You have to try to keep your bicycle tires on CLEAN pavement if you want them to live long lives....