Not a single flat

But I don't think there's much left in it.

kms doesn't mean much as it more a matter of where you go with it. If you ride on roads full of nails, broken glass and rocks then it won't be long before your tire give up. If the roads are pretty clean and you are lucky not to encounter any surprises on the road then kms/miles could add up pretty fast without too much trouble.

So, what kind of tire was it?

I have two different rear wheels, one with a 55$ gatorskin that got puncture 5-6 times in the 4000-5000 kms I rode with it and one with this cheap tire that gave me 9000 kms on the same rural road (lots of potholes, pebbles, etc.) without any flats, I may just be luck but the statistics are against the gatorskin. The big difference is that the gatorskin still look almost as good as new.

It's (was) a Serfas Seca 700x23. It was on my front wheel for about 7500 kms and I killed it on the rear for the last 1500 kms.

Now we're talking. Comparison is probably more meaningful than km alone but there is a new variable coming into the equation. The fact that your tire was in front. Anyway, the best way to know is to try it. The more people the better.

I've found that the majority of flats I get are on the back tire, also that the back tire wears much faster. I've also found that once it starts going, it goes fast - by that I mean that the first roughly 5500 miles were almost flat free, the last 500 miles ramped up to about as bad as I've had with any tire. Partly I think it was just old, worn and easier to puncture. Partly I think I should have booted some small (< 2mm) punctures better, and they just allowed stuff to get through to the tube or let the tube push out enough to puncture. Almost entirely urban riding, rough roads with lots of debris. The tires were Michelin Transworld City 26 x 1.5, $20 each, until the last 500miles or so I was very happy with them.

I know but I'm still impressed that I got all that milage out of a cheap tire. I bought the cheapest I could find last summer because I was broke hoping to go a month or two before getting a better tire.

The Schwalbe Marathon Plus on my rear wheel has over 9000 miles on that wheel, with one flat.
At 9000 kms, it was just getting broken in!

If I'm not mistaking the Schwable are more expensive as well. Are they worth it?
I'm asking because I was recommended the gatorskin and to be honest I was very disapointed. I still have the tire but it's on my spare wheel because I dont trust the thing. I got more flats with my gatorskin within 4000 kms than all my other tires put together in 15000 kms (approx.) since I started commuting 3 years ago.
All that put together I prefer buy cheap tires even if I have to replace more frequently

Schwalbe marathon plus can be found at 47$ at ebay. Don't know if it's really worth it compared to a 2 times cheaper tire as you haven't used your seca at the rear from start. The thing is that you can buy the same 20$ tire and use the old one as a puncture-proof liner by cutting the side of the old tire, gatorskin or seca by the way. I'm on Schwalbe now i would have done that if my old tire wasn't a studded tire.

You do realize that just the simple act of posting that boast means that you will have 3 flats in the next month no matter what tires you are on don't you? ;-)

I just got a bike that takes 23s and like to have spares on hand, and I don't have many road hazards here so I shopped and bought some Nashbar Prima 2 Plus - they're $15 and the reviews indicate they are long-lasting.

If all you want out of a tire is high mileage that's easy to do with a cheap tire. If you want no flats in addition to the high mileage, that usually will require a better tire.

No matter what you get, you're giving something up somewhere. Usually high mileage comes at the expense of grip. For a lot of people that's a good trade-off because they usually don't ride near the grip limits of their tires anyway. High mileage with good flat protection usually means a stiff and heavy tire. That's OK too for a lot of people.

Whoever recommended the Gatorskins to you was recommending a tire that was relatively light, would roll well on good pavement and had decent puncture protection for a moderate price. The Marathon Plus won't meet those criteria, but if those aren't your criteria then that might be OK.

As for puncture protection, there are two basic ways to stop a puncture: (1) a thick, hard bulk of material, or (2) a belt of very strong fabric-based protection (such as Kevlar, Vectran, etc.). The thick, hard barrier pairs well with high mileage tires because the people using those tires generally aren't overly concerned with performance. The Marathon Plus is top of the heap in this category. The fabric-based protection gets paired with lightweight tires for people who are looking for performance. A lot of the fabric-based belts do very well, but they tend to be vulnerable to very sharp shards which can get a point between the weave of the material and spread it out. Depending on how the tire is constructed, it may also be vulnerable to side-wall failure. The fabric-based system is also more vulnerable to pinch flats because it is designed to flex with the tire.

Sh*t!!! I didn't think about that... too late

It was recommended by more than one person (on this forum) as a bullet proof, high mileage tire. I believe the high mileage part: at 4000-5000 kms the tire still look almost like new. As for the bullet proof part I will say no more.

I use Specialized Armadillos 700x23 on my road bike, and I love them. Over 3 years and 15k miles on one set, got a new set and put about 3k on them so far - no flats except one where the inner tube broke at the seam (after having the same inner tube in for almost 4 years I'm not really surprised!)

This is commuting in central london, over all sorts of rubbish (I often pick glass / stones out of my tyres).

Daven

Yeah, I see that a lot, but I think we all have a lot of assumptions behind our recommendations, some of which we may not be aware of. The Gatorskin isn't bulletproof, but it does very well in a lot of conditions. Compared to most other lightweight tires it does extremely well. Compared to something like the Marathon Plus, it's not so bullet proof.

It also seems to me that the Gatorskin's puncture protection breaks down over time. The pair that I used were great for about 2000 miles, but then I started getting flats, even though the tread surface still looked like it had a good bit of life left. Maybe that was just a fluke. More likely the tread getting thin pushed the puncture protection over some tipping point.

Unfortunately, there are way too many variables for real life tests to be statistically significant with small samples. Even if 10 persons tell you how fine a tire is it doesn't mean much especially if the group of people isn't randomized. You could have for instance 1000 persons telling you how fine their tires are but when you look at the testing conditions that their tires had to handle you realize that they are too similar for instance weight less than 120lbs, ride all ultra light racing bikes, that their tires encounter rocks on the road at the same low rocks/mile frequency etc. Usually, the more randomized the better in experiments which means that heavy persons, light persons, riding in all weather conditions, with any level of tire pressure, for all kind of bike use inside the specified design limits etc.. come and tell you how good their tires are. Even then there is no guarantee due to psychological bias. Only well made double blinded studies could tell you something. There are also lab tests but lab tests are what they are. In the end for yourself the result doesn't mean a thing for your specific use but for lack of better...

Knock on wood 17 times... I still think it was impressive. I got bare 2000 miles out of my cheap michelin dynamics before the casing ruptured and the tire bulged out on the back. And talk about flats galore. So you have my envy and respect, or you tire does.

I got about the same with michelin dynamics but only a few pinch flats (my fault)

I don't understand how you get so much mileage out of those Serfas Seca tires. I couldn't go two weeks without a flat when I rode those things.

I know, I'm awesome!

I can vouch for this. I got several thousand miles out of a pair and they are still good. I was surprised,,,

For me, the cost is worth it. I end up paying ~$50 per tyre, which is about 2X what you can get cheap tires for, and I get more than 2X the life out of a set of tyres. That however is not what makes it worthwhile for me - the bike is my main mode of transportation, and the PITA factor of having to fix a flat in the morning, when I am trying to get to work has a lot of negative value to me. I ride about 3,000 miles per year, and end up replacing one tyre about every 2 years, which means that I am paying about $0.10 per day for my expensive tyres. If I got no more life from the SMP tyres than from a cheap tyre, but was assured fewer flats, the added expense would make it worthwhile for me, the fact that on a cost per mile basis, the SMP costs no more makes it an easy choice.