cyclintom

I'm heading over to Ireland and quite a few people have suggested fatter tires to cope with the roads there. I find it hard to believe that the roads in Ireland are any worse than in Marin County but nevertheless I installed some Contenental Ultras in 28 and took the bike out over the weekend for about 112 miles total.

Saturday at the 40 mile mark I got one of those Instant Flats(tm). I looked all over the tire for whatever would have caused that since it takes a huge hole to go flat that fast. Nothing - the exterior of the tire looked perfect.

Later when I was looking at the innertube I found a snake-bite/pinch flat.

Well, what would cause the tire to deflate enough to allow a pinch flat? I hadn't ridden over any particularly bad holes. So I finally decided that the stem must have come loose and I looked very closely and sure enough there was a disconnect of the stem from the innertube in a small area.

Apparently the innertube leaked slowly around the stem until just hitting a mild pothole caused a snake-bite and an instant flat. The nice part is that it didn't happen on the long downhill ride but on the boring flat afterwards.

So if you've had a flat and you can't think of why, take a look at the stem.

botto 

I spent 2 weeks in Limerick for work, with a few trips out of town, to Galway, and County Claire back in late feb/early March.

I think 28 will be OTT, even 25s seem overkill, but maybe that's just me? caveat - i didn't ride.


some pics of the roads

NOS88

I had a similar problem... four such flats in a period of two weeks. For me the solution was to take the rim tape and slide it so the valve stem hole was covered. Next I cut a small "x" through the tape that was over the valve stem and inserted the valve stem through it. This created a tighter fit with the stem held more firmly in place and places a small amount of the rim tape around the edges of the rim's valve stem hole, thereby reducing the chance of any rough edges contributing to it. Oh, one other thing I've found is that ultra light tubes tend to break at the valve stem base much more frequently than other tubes.

operator

Or you can just take a small piece of rim tape and line the hole. If that's too thick, wrap the base of the tube with electrical before remounting.

ElJamoquio

Those roads look beautiful to me...

And no roads can be worse than Allegheny County, PA (Pittsburgh) or Wayne County, MI (Detroit) roads that I've ridden on...