Anyone using the continental ultra gatorskin tires? How are they in terms of getting flats? I'm considering getting some.

i haven't gotten a flat since i put then on 3 months ago. i'm pretty excited.

I'm a cheap@ss and it took me awhile before I bought mine since I had been using $10 zaffiros for a few years, so 30-40 dollars a tire seemed like a big purchase. Saying that, gatorskins are worth it. Whether on sale or not, it's a solid bike related purchase.

they rock.... been rolling for 6 months of heavy commuting in pretty much a sea of glass and only 1 flat from a pallet staple (as opposed to 7-8 on my previous michi's). picked mine up for around $26-28 on a performance sale.

edit: armadillos not gators... i suk @ teh reading.

I run dillos on my road bike and gators on my fg, no flats last season.

I had a pair on my roadbike (not fixed) and had really bad luck with them. I bought some last winter and got a flat the first day I had them from a little speck of something. I don't expect miracles, I still figured nails, staples and large chunks of glass and the such still had a decent chance of giving me a flat with any tire, but most of the flats I had with them was from little stuff, mainly road cinders until they got swept up in the spring (which is what I hoped the "tougher" tire would help protect against). Within about 5 months the sidewall on the front tire developed a hole, so that was it for that one. The tires I had before that were Conti Ultra's and I had maybe 1 flat with them up until they were replaced, at that point they were worn flat and starting to show through.

I would at least give them a shot, who knows, a lot of people have had good luck with them.

dog, someone named a thread after you.

I flatted a couple times in Southern AZ-- goats heads and cactus thorns. Not as good as the Armadillos. Much better than most tires, though.

i just installed some gator skins today. i hope they work out as well for me as they seem to for everyone else.

curious thing, the labels are on different sides for each tire based on the directional pattern. seems to be just a cosmetic thing but it's kind of strange nonetheless.

www.probikekit.com has them for about $25 a piece.

I use them on the rear wheel. IMHO they don't roll as nice as
some other tires but they get flats about 1/10th as much
as softer tires.

This subject has been discussed literally dozens of times on this board. A simple search would have yielded more results than you could handle.

Gatorskins are great tires. Get them if you don't want to flat.

as said above, pretty much every "tires?" thread contains several replies in favour of gatorskins, armadillos, and randonneurs.

I have a 23c on the front of my beater, and just replaced the crappy one I had on my rear with a 25c, since they were having a sale on them at Performance. The label is different on the rear, which I thought was weird.

NEVER had a flat using a gatorskin, they are the shiz.

i got one yesterday for my rear... on the front i have a conti ultrasport. i got the ultrasport with my road bike and, even though people say they are terrible tires, i have never had a flat with it. i've put over 2000 miles on it and never had one flat.

funny, i was just in huntington beach last week.....nice town....looks like a lot of scenic riding.

gators are a directional tire, read the fine print

do you mean a different direction for front and rear? the direction marking on the sidewall of the tire says to have the flat part of the little triangles on the tread face the direction of rotation. if you do that the labels end up mismatched (all orange on one side, mostly orange with a red 'duraskin' label on the other).

is there other fine print in the packaging somewhere?

and they are basically slick so the tread doesnt really matter.....but i was rather OCD-ly disappointed when I noticed my stickers didnt match after i had check the proper direction before mounting the tires....