rachel120

I browse the threads and there's a lot of stuff that I'm not understanding. I'll learn the stuff eventually, but I also know that a lot of it will actually click when I get to a point of needing to know what it means. Baby steps, lol. Meanwhile here's some basic questions I think I need to know now.

First, I have seen where people champion those skinny little no decent tread road tires. Those things scare me. I imagine what will happen when I'm riding on new asphalt or during/after a rainstorm when there's so much water on the roads the cars have to worry about hydroplaning or any other condition when you need traction. What is so great about those tires? And what happens if you have them and hit a situation where you need traction on the road?

Second, how do you find an area in a city where you can just ride for the fun of it? My car can only fit the bike with a good chunk of the bike hanging out. So wherever I can go for the fun of it, I got to be able to cycle there. Which means driving to X park out of town where there's some great trails is a no go. Do I just zoom Google Earth in really close and look for residential streets? Is there any other way of finding some place to have fun that doesn't involve angry motorists driving far too fast and far too aggressively near you?

Third, what is an easy way to locate holes in tubes out on the road? So far I'm needing water to find them.

Fourth, people have mentioned something called a co-op. I'm assuming it's a social group, but what is it exactly? How do you find them? Are they forgiving of newbies' lack of knowledge, or should I get more experienced before networking?

Thanks for any replies.

Edit: Fifth, whoever decided where the serial number should go on my bike was obviously smoking something really good at the time. The only way I can get the entire number in one picture is to flip it and try to do a panoramic picture. In general, are insurance companies forgiving of taking two pictures, one with the first two thirds of the number and the second of the last two thirds (the overlap showing it's continuous)? Or do I practice my panoramic photo taking skills?

Kevindale

Just ride and enjoy it and start working on your own bike, and keep reading, and you'll pick it up soon enough. The things you really need to know aren't all that complicated.

Treads are really only needed on dirt and muddy terrain. If you really have skinny tires, even with treads they can slip easily if you hit gravel/dirt/loose stuff. Bikes don't really hydroplane, since the tires are so narrow. On asphalt slicks are usually just fine. However, most people have been moving from super skinny tires to 25-28mm tires on road bikes. Most of these tires have a fine tread. Many road bikes are now being made to handle 32-35mm tires and even bigger.

One strategy is to look on Strava or a similar site, and find popular rides in your area. Look for rides where people average fairly high speeds, and you'll probably be looking at places where road cyclists are riding. Also ask at the local bike shops, I'll guarantee they know good places to ride.

If you have a mini-pump, you can put some air back in the tire and carefully feel for it. Actually, you don't even need a mini-pump - as Lauren Becall said, just put your lips together and blow. Then use your CO2 cartridge to do the final fill, if that's how you roll. You can also carefully feel inside the tire and see if you can feel the thorn or wire or object that caused the flat, still in the tire (always look for this anyway!), and then find the corresponding part of the tube and you'll find the hole. I usually have a spare tube, plus a patch kit, so if I can't find the hole or can't repair it, I just use the new tube. Fortunately I haven't had to bother with this in a while.

A co-op is a cooperative bike shop. It's part social group, part workshop. Google bike co-op and your city. Many cities don't have any, unfortunately. However, they should be very forgiving of your lack of knowledge if you find one. They're usually full of bike nerds who love to share knowledge.

As for the serial number, just write it down. I've never heard of an insurance company demanding a photograph. If you bought it new, you'll also have the number on the sales receipt.

dedhed

...

locolobo13 

Also google maps

https://www.google.com/maps/

Click on the menu on the upper left and select "Bicycling". It will show you trails and bike paths. It's not perfect. Sometimes there will be a better road not a bike path near the bike path and vice versa. You just have to figure that out with experience in your locale.

noglider 

1. Skinny tires aren't for everyone, because the ride is harsher than that of wide tires, but there's no problem with traction. Really.

2. Go exploring. Ask other cyclists. Ask at the bike shop. You'll find that areas you think are not nice to ride are not as bad as they look.

3. My repair kit has a spare tube and a patch kit. For the first puncture of a ride, I swap the tube in and carry the punctured one at home. A second puncture is very unlikely. I patch the tube at home, and it becomes my spare. I don't need water to find every leak. I can usually inflate the tube and move it slowly past my face. If my ears don't hear the leak, my cheek might feel it.

Maelochs

Re; finding holes on the road .... Don't. Bring one or two spare tubes. if you get more than two flats (and it can happen) then use the Dedhead technique and pump up the tube until it is huge.

Most important thing, which others have mentioned but I want to emphasize to spare you pain I have felt: Check inside the tire. Often there is a thorn, or a nearly invisible piece of tire-reinforcing wire which will stab your new tube just as it did the old.

Also, for not very many dollars yo can get a rack for the back of your car to carry your bike. Another thing which might work ... look at Google maps and look for long squiggly lines without many intersections. Straight lines = fast drivers sometimes (depends where you live ... Oklahoma, Texas, etc maybe not) but usually long roads that don't lead to shopping centers are semi-rural or reserved for the semi-wealthy and have only local traffic. Excepting rush hour, not a lot of cars.

If you see any area which looks good, google-earth it and make sure the roads are roads (out here they have a habit of turning into dirt roads, dirt paths, then just dirt. Not so good if you planned a big loop, to find a quarter of it is unridable.)

Squeeze

As stated by someone above, find them with the name of your city and bicycle co-op in a search engine.

Here's a link to the co-op(s) near me, as an example of what they are. I like them because they have bins full of inexpensive used bike parts that they let customers browse through.

Bikes Together | Denver's Nonprofit Bike Shop

Helpful tip: bring gloves if you're going parts-bin scrounging. Old bike parts are often dirty, sticky, and/or smelly.

HTupolev

Tread pattern doesn't matter much on the road. Actually, aggressive tread like mountain bike knobbies can harm road handling and traction, because all the knobs do is squirm and rumble against the hard surface; they only help when they have a soft/clumpy surface to bite into.

On the road, tires mostly maintain traction through the coefficient of friction between the tire and the pavement. In dry conditions, that coefficient is quite high... you just need to be careful going over non-pavement, like gravel in the road.

The friction coefficient does drop in the wet. Some tire designers believe that a very shallow, fine pattern (such as tiny speckles, or herringbone patterns) can interlock with small irregularities on a road surface, improving wet road traction. So some road tires do have a bit of that sort of patterning; it's especially common on the sides, where the tire rides during cornering.

At the pressures that narrow road tires are run at, you'd need to be doing comically high speeds to cause hydroplaning. Even a fatbike would need to be doing serious highway speeds to hydroplane.

Some tires do have "water shedding" tread, but this is purely aesthetic.

Minimal tread patterning rolls well on hard surfaces, and anywhere high width isn't required, narrower tires can be lighter and more compact without major drawbacks.

Also, because high-performance road tires are traditionally narrow, that's where most of the selection is. Most bikes that are high performers on the road don't fit super wide tires, and there are very few high-performance super-wide road tires.

But, high-performance wider road tires are currently becoming more available.

Any way you can make it more compact, i.e. by taking a wheel off?

Mostly I avoid riding in dense city areas.

Always align the main tire decal with the valve stem, so if you find an object in the tire, you can figure out where the hole should be in the tube.

Carry at least one spare. Don't bother patching during a ride, unless you absolutely need to.

Yes.

1989Pre

Some tiny holes are resistant to any detection techniques (outside of immersion). If you can't find the hole, even after pumping the tube a bit and holding it to your face, then go to your spare tube and patch it when you get home.

thumpism 

Saliva on a suspected puncture will bubble if air is escaping.

Gresp15C

I live in an urban area, though not as lively as somewhere like NYC. Still, I prefer to avoid heavy traffic.

For me, I'd rather poke around my neighborhood streets, even if the riding conditions are sub-optimal, than spend time loading my bike onto my car and driving somewhere. That's just my philosophical preference, if you will. So I've adapted my bike to "urban" riding (whatever that means), and do "urban" things with it, such as commuting to work, shopping, getting around town, and taking leisure rides that get me out onto the bike paths in the outskirts.

Google Maps works pretty well for finding bike routes. Choose an arbitrary destination (interesting restaurant, park, a bike path, etc.) and see if Google can show you a decent route for cycling. Get around and get to know the habits of local drivers -- it might be as bad as it seems depending on where you ride. Have fun!

Now the following is a bit political, but a bike and attire that look like you're not planning on racing or riding like a jerk, might have a subtle influence on the behavior of drivers. Wish it weren't necessary, but I think it's improved my riding experience.

spinnaker

Forget about patching on the road. That is only for extreme emergencies where you are out of options. A couple of tubes don't weigh that much. It is important that you check for road debris in the tire.

What to do is mark the location of the valve on your tire. If you mount your own, you can use a letter or design on the tire as your mark.

When you get a flat, remove the inner tube being careful to note the side that of the inner tube in relation to the tire. Pump up the tube. You should find the hole. If you do, lay it up next to the tire. It will give you at least a very rough idea of where the hole occurred in the tire. Give this area extra scrutiny to check for any debris. But you should check the whole tire. After a visual, you can run your fingers inside the tire but be careful not to cut yourself on any debris. Check the outside of the tire too. Once you are certain tire is debris free, mount your new tire an tube.

The worst debris to find is the threads from a steel belted radial. That stuff can hide inside your tire and make it nearly impossible to find.

Buy a good pump. I highly recommend the Topeak Road Morph. It is sort of a mini floor pump. You can get pretty decent psi.

Make sure you have a boot in your bag in the event of tire damage. I use a piece of old jeans or a piece of naugahyde. Others use tyvek from mailing envelopes but I have never tested it. You can use a dollar bill in an emergency. If you want to make sure the boot really holds then use a $100.

SkyDog75

With bike tires' small contact patch and rounded profile, you'd have to be riding incredibly fast to hydroplane on a bike. Like way faster than humanly possible.

On the other hand, even with no hydroplaning, traction is reduced on wet surfaces whether or not you have tread. So be careful in the rain, no matter what kind of tires you have on your bike.

As for why people like tires with no tread...

Pros:
* Tread helps get some 'bite' when riding on soft surfaces like dirt.

Cons:
* Tread can't 'bite' surfaces that don't give, so it doesn't help on pavement.
* Tread rumbles on pavement, contributing to rolling resistance.
* Slick (treadless) tires have more rubber in contact with the pavement, giving better grip.
* Tread can deform or 'squirm', causing reduced traction or poorer handling while cornering.

Got a local bike shop? Ask there. They may have organized group rides you can participate in, and if not, they should still know what local roads are good for cycling.

The easiest way is to avoid doing it in the first place. Instead of patching tubes while you're out and about, carry a spare tube. Rolled up, they're not much bigger than a patch kit. Personally, I carry a tube and a patch kit, just in case. First flat gets a tube. I'll throw the flat tube into my saddle bag so I can patch it at home. If I'm unlucky enough to have more than one flat, then I get to look for the hole on the roadside. Pump up the tube extra big so the air escaping will be more noticeable by sound and feel.

Also, like HTupolev above, I always install my tires so that the label is centered on the valve stem. If I can find the sharp object or cut in the tire, I can compare its distance from the label to infer where the tube damage is relative to the valve stem.

"Co-op" is short for "cooperative". They're generally member-owned (customer-owned) operations whose charter defines that the organization exists for the collective good of its members. There are co-ops for all sorts of things like groceries or even banking (e.g. credit unions).

When it comes to cycling, many co-ops operate shops in which you can work on your own bike or seek the assistance of others. They're typically newbie-friendly, with volunteers or employees ready to lend a hand. Some even offer how-to classes.

BobbyG

If I am away from a sink and I can't see the puncture, I will inflate the inner tube and wet my lips, then slowly rotate the tube close to my wet lips. This usually works...but I also carry a spare innertube.

Machka 

I grew up riding those tyres ... I've been riding bicycles with them for 40 years. You don't hydroplane with those kind of tyres and if you hit a situation where you need traction you can slow down.


Get on the bicycle, start to ride, turn left at the next intersection. You can also turn the bicycle layer onto Google Maps to get an idea of what Google thinks is a good place to ride.


Hole the tube against your cheek.


Type "Bicycle Coop" and your location into Google. Also go to a bicycle shop and ask.



I've never had any issues getting the whole number into one photo. You can also write it down.

jefnvk

1 - Skinny tires, like hard saddles, are hard to comprehend for those who haven't experienced them. Once you try them, it is quick to understand that there are many misconceptions about them, even if you ultimately don't like them. FWIW, the only time I've wrecked in the wet, I had wider tires and plenty of tread. Tread doesn't help in the wet, although it can help on loose surfaces.

2 - Have you tried taking the front wheel off your bike? Really worst case, take both tires off, or get a bike rack.

3 - I prefer to just carry a spare tube. Much easier to swap and patch later at home. If you must find it roadside, pump it up, squeeze, and rotate it listening for the hiss.

4 - Do a google search, you may or may not have them near you. They're a place where people donate old bikes, the serviceable junkers go to low income community members for free, nicer ones get sold off to support the programs, and one can join as a member and get access too tools and workspace. Personally, I haven't had much luck with mine looking for parts, but others seem to love them.

5 - That is a question best left for your insurance agent. Could vary wildly by company, coverage and locale.

Milton Keynes

I tucked away a couple of small 1 3/4" car tire patches in my underseat bag. They can be glued in with regular bike patch glue and cut down to size if needed, however I think a whole one will fit in my 28mm tires. They might need to be trimmed to go in a 25. I'm sure you could find a box of them at any auto parts store or ask at your local tire shop, they might sell you a couple.

Milton Keynes

And as far as hydroplaning, I've never had that problem but riding through some loose gravel left from the crappy chip seal job they did on our city streets was kind of scary a couple times.

Drew Eckhardt 

They let you go faster at the same effort.

They provide more traction than a tire with tread unless you're riding on a wet road in excess of 78 (75 psi) - 94 (110 psi) MPH at which point they hydroplane.

You keep going when you reach city limits. On my last 200 mile ride I covered the two highest paved peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area and there was a nice stretch with no services for 50 miles.

The Open Street Map cycle map routes on ridewithgps and well-trafficed roads on the Strava Global Heat Map are usually nice. You can spot check for bad pavement, poor shoulders, etc. using Google Maps. Some cycle-specific maps are marked for expected traffic (line weight on Krebbs).

You can add air and feel for the leak.

It's a not for profit bike repair shop where they provide the tools and you do the work with assistance.

RECfromPA

What is a boot? I've seen it mentioned in many threads, but still haven't figured it out.

spinnaker

A patch of tough material that you can stick between the inner tube and any tire damage.

Juan Foote

As to the transportation issue.

Not sure of car, but look at some of the inexpensive bike rack options. One of my first racks was a Saris Bones. It was cheap and worked well.

The discovery phase of finding and exploring new places to ride pays dividends worth much more than the purchase price of a rack.

spinnaker

I would spend the exra money and get a hitch (if you don't already have one) and hitch rack. And save your paint job.

ironwood

Where do you live? There is probably someone on the forum who can indicate bikeable areas or routes.

Skinny tires are for wannabe racers, but even racers are using somewhat wider tires.

noglider 

Jobst Brandt, a mechanical engineer, explained that at bicycle speeds, hydroplaning is impossible. It never happens. Never worry about it.