I had 6 in two days once... turned out the rim tape was peeling back a little bit and the spoke holes were puncturing the tube. Keep up on your rim strip maintenance too!

I don't like carrying anything in my jersey pockets, I find it too uncomfortable to carry much more than a tissue ... I'd rather let the bicycle carry stuff.

The other thing is that most of the places I've ridden have had such changeable weather conditions that it would be foolish to go out without at least a jacket tucked into a bag in case the weather sudden gets cold or it starts to hail or something.

Are you going to delete this thread now?

Your bike looks marvelous!

You've sealed your fate!

Bring a couple spare tubes, pump, levers, boots, etc. on your next ride.

A couple of months ago I was out riding and it occurred to me that I hadn't flatted in well over 1,000 miles. Not five minutes later I was on the side of the road replacing a tube. What's bad is that it didn't surprise me a bit.

I lucked out last month while riding around Scottsdale AZ. I didn't have any tire repair items. My "Plan A and B" was to take a hike if the bike let me down. No flats all month until the last day in town which happened at my home-base at the end of the ride.

no?

I wouldn't know how to delete it if I wanted to...

I live in AZ. We have lots of plants that have wicked thorns and cacti that have needles.

The edges of the road have lots of broken glass and LOTS of tire shards. I don't think you can ride a mile in the summer without seeing tire carcass on the shoulder. These are because we don't get much rain and no snow. People will drive on their tires until the wire belts are showing. The extreme temps also cause a lot of blowouts when they drive with low air pressure, then the tires overheat and explode like a carbon frame (just kidding but couldn't resist). The tire bits get run over by other motorists and get broken into small pieces.

The wire in the belting is small in diameter and sharp. I get flats from these small pieces of wire all the time. It's sometimes hard to pick them out of the tire and they will give you a nasty poke in the fingertip as well.

I do have one of those Lezyne pumps I had mounted on my last bike. The adapter tube used to rattle like crazy so I needed to make a "damper" with a small piece of inner tube (had plenty of old ones). After that I noticed the handle still rattled a little bit so I wrapped a small pice of inner tube around the pump body where the black handle overlapped.

It would still rattle when I hit a large bump and I don't like my bike to sound like a rattletrap so in the bike drawer for the Lezyne pump. If I'm going for a solo century I will stick it in my jersey pocket though.

Do you and I live in the same Arizona?

I don't know where all these "tire carcasses" are... I see them ocassionally on the freeway and thats about it. I don't ride my bike on the freeways. As for broken glass, I don't see that a whole lot either. I don't ride much, about 80-100 miles a week, but if it were that prevelent, I'm assuming I would see these things.

A few years ago there was a article in Bicycling mag. about what to do if you dont have a repair kit. A couple of suggestions were to cut the tube where the hole was with your front chain ring and tie the ends of the tube.The other was to put vegetation such as leaves ,grass and other plants in the tire.I thought those two were the best ideas.

You live downtown where the cars are traveling slowly. I live off Carefree Hwy/74 where the cars are traveling fast.

Not many cacti downtown either.

I've only been on the MUP with my kids to show them what it was like. I told them to watch out for "MUP racers" out to impress...

So in short we do live in a different state.

No need to cop an attitude, I was just asking a question.

It's not like I ride my bike in circles downtown. In fact, I usually ride around Paradise Valley, and sometimes Fountain Hills, Beeline, Bush HWY, etc. Pretty much always where there is lots of cacti. I simply don't see these tire shreds, meadows of broken glass, or cacti all over the roads.

Oy! You really do suck at this internet stuff!

Hey, I've been saying that for a long time!

I noticed!

You can be a bad-ass or a delicate flower but not both!

============

Anyway...

Two tubes, a patch kit in a bag under the seat and a mini-pump (mounted under a water bottle). And I'm good for 50 or 200 miles.

If you're bi-polar, you can be whatever you want!

If you do that right, you have two nicks. That way, you can argue with yourself! (pcad manages to argue with himself but he's got other problems (he thinks he's the pope)).

cellphone. if i can't get someone to get me, plan C is a long uncomfortable walk in my sidis

Plan B? Sometimes I right by the lbs. Its right about halfway through my ride when I take that route. Other than that, I keep my cell phone on me. If it comes down to it, I will call someone to get me, and take a nap in the grass while I wait.

I "copped an attitude" because you inferred I was lying about seeing broken glass, thorns and tire carcass all over during my rides.

I'm from a generation that values their integrity. I'm guessing you are in your early twenties or younger and an inference to lying just "rolls off your back".

I've rode more than 15,000 miles since June 2009 in AZ and will stand by my statement that there are many tire parts, shards of glass and thorns where I ride. I'm glad to hear that isn't thecase in your part of town...

Either way good luck not getting flats.

Nap sounds good. Too bad I'm always whacked out of my mind on zipvits or I'd have the same plan b

To avoid carrying a tube and a pump? Seems kind of selfish.

I was kind of wondering the same thing. My cheap Kevlar belted tires haven't had any flats, except for one due totally to not paying attention. Maybe the cheaper heavier tires are that much better protected?

Ah. One of those guys. I'm older than you so I'm automatically wiser, better looking, can hula hoop better, and lord knows never blow anything out of proportion.

I bet you voted for brewer too. She's old as dirt so she must be better than anyone younger.

There's no winning with your type, so I won't bother. For te record though I wasn't implying anything about you lying, I was simply saying I've never noticed any of those things. Then again if I wanted to further stereotype you, I could say that a minor inconvenience in my eyes would probably be a letter to the councilman in yours. A minor inconvenience like, say, one broken bottle over the course of a 50 mile ride.