Prior to September 7 I had ridden many months and over 1500 miles with no flat tires on either my road bike or my mountain bike.

During the last 8 days which included 5 days of riding I've suffered:

4 road flats in 120 miles
3 mountain bike flats in 40 miles

I've gone thru four brand new tubes. All the tires are in good shape and fairly new

What kind of sacrifice or offering must I make to the FLATS demon to free myself from it's spell?

Been there. Besides doing a lot of cursing I...

- put thorn-resistant tubes on my mtb
- put liners on my road bike

If this happened to me, I'd check the location of the repeated flats and, if it's always the same spot, check for a bit of glass/wire/something else small embedded in the tire that I had failed to remove after the first flat.

If you've done that, then all that remains is to carry the heaviest possible frame pump and an industrial-strength patch kit on your next ride, and maybe 2-3 extra tubes as well. That might appease the flat demons, the way that carrying an umbrella wards off rain!

Road bike - Gatorskins. They work for me - no puncture flats for over 3k miles - one pinch flat (pothole).

MTB - what kind of flat - puncture or pinch? If it's puncture, not much you can do about that. Pinch - either run higher pressure or switch to tubeless.

Plan for and expect flats on every ride...it keeps the demons second guessing themselves.

Are your (road) tires wearing thin? Time to replace them, maybe?

Hey there TacomaSailor!

I would offer them my fat...my weight...and ...my mass, that I've most likely accumulated over the past few months.

3 times I have picked up a piece of steel belt in one of my road bikes tires. I always mount the tires so hte decal lines up withthe valvestem on hte tube so I can realign the tube with the tire and search the area of any leak carefully.

Only one of those 3 times did I find the steel belt fragment on the first flat. One time I searched carefully, found nothing, replaced the tube and rode 40 plus more miles, no problem. Only to find the tire flat the next morning.

Flat repair 101. Always inflate the tube, find the hole, and align it with the tire so you can determine if there is a hole in the tire that needs booted or there is foreign matter in the tire that requires removal. On the flat types that you have been experiencing I have found automobile steel belted radial tire bits embedded underneath the surface of the tire. Usually the steel bit is so thin that you cannot see it or feel it because it is the same thickness as the tire and it only breaks the surface of the tire when it is flexed under pressure. I have had to manipulate the tire for several minutes trying to force it to the inside or the outside of the tire before achieving success. My buddy had flatted 2 times previously on a ride before I caught up with him and it took this methodology on the third flat to remove the steel piece from the tire.

Another possibility is that you purchased tubes in bulk that came from the same production run and were defective. Not likely, but it has happened.

I guess my dumb joking was not so much joking to some folks - I was just expressing frustration with some bad luck - or maybe bad flat fixes

I always take the tire off - turn it inside out and carefully feel around the entire tire for wire, thorns, glass...etc. On several of the flats I did find tiny pieces of wire or thorns (here in Puget Sound?) in the tire. I carefully cleaned them.

I think the comment about defective tubes may also be pertinent - two of the road flats were on brand new Continental Light Race tubes and were explosive blowouts in the side of the tube. I had purchased them at the same time earlier in the week. It was over 90 degrees, I was running 110psi (cold), and I was descending some long steep twisty roads and working the brakes pretty hard and I weigh 210 pounds. Hot Wheels?

One mountain bike flat looked like a blowout but might have been a pinch flat since I was running low pressure to climb some very steep rocky/rooty/cinderblock lined trails. It did not look like a pinch but I suspect it was.

Two of the road flats were inexplicable - nothing in the tire, no holes in the tire, I had carefully checked pressure and found it a 100psi before I started on a cool cloudy day.

I was just whining here - but thanks for the suggestions and concern

My main point was WHY can one ride months and months & thousands of miles with no flats and then have a string of many flats in a week or two. I've been riding fairly seriously for 40+ years and flats / no flats seem to come in spells of badness/goodness.

I'm off to ride here in Puget Sound on the last summer day before the winter rain starts... and I have to move back to San Diego for good riding.

Offer your favorite cassette in a pentagram at midnight on the eve of the full moon while chanting the name brand of your tires, don't forget to burn sage.

Pay attention to your surroundings? I had a flat yesterday after a two month run of luck. Hit a sharp rock going down a hill. I even saw it coming and felt it hit the rim through the tire and new I was done..

I now have confirmation I am really on the FLAT demons NO RIDE list.

Wednesday I had a flat 1/2 way thru a road ride. Put in a new Continental tube - inflated it with pump. Rode another 33 miles and had a perfectly good tire/tube at the end.

This afternoon (44 hours later) the tire was flat - dead flat - press the valve and not even a little hiss. Took the tube out - inflated - no leak - put it under water - no leak. Put it back on the bike and rode 31 miles with no problem and the same pressure at the end as the start.

The bike is in a locked garage and only I have the key.

???

I performed the exorcism ritual that rid my tires of the flat demons once and for all. The steps of the ritual you must perform are printed on the installation instructions that come with every set of Mr Tuffy liners.

And another today, damn jinxed myself by responding to your thread.

Your explosive flats sound like tube pinches. I really go out of my way to prevent those; there's no point in giving the Flat Fairies(tm) any freebies.

"Evil" implies a choice of good vs. bad. Flat Fairies simple ARE. Like rain and wind, they are a force that we must all learn to live with.
Calling them "evil" may antagonize them as much as claiming you've defeated them.