I'm looking for suggestions on puncture protection products, and not interested in going "tubeless". Besides a puncture resistant tire, what other things may be helpful to add to them? Are there any good liners you would recommend? What about "Slime - Self-Sealing Tubes"? Anything else?

AdvXtrm, First off, tubes with sealant in them will still flatten when punctured, it may take a bit longer tho. I find them a pain to patch.

Punctures with pneumatic tires are a fact of bicycle life, nothing can guarantee otherwise. There are some puncture resistant tubes, tires, and tire liners that can help.

What I have found most frustrating is a repeat puncture. Use a small pair of needle nose pliers and a cotton ball to determine if a cause of a puncture is still stuck in the tire. Turning the tire inside-out is a good idea if you suspect something is still stuck in the tire following the initial inspection.

Brad

I agree with most of that.

I tried slime tubes once and hated them. They seemed to only delay the tire going flat most of the time. They were messy enough that I threw them away at some point rather than patch them and never bought them again.

I have not used liners. I figure that I can have as much or more flat protection than I want by choosing a tire that is suitable. For me that does not mean going with the heaviest "flat proof" tires because some of them are real anchors sacrificing ride feel more than I want. I have heard at least one person say that with Mr. Tuffy liners and a light racy tire they get the closest to the best of both worlds. I have also heard folks say that the liners tend to rub the tubes and cause flats eventually.

I really don't mind changing or patching a tube once in a while and figure it is the cost of a nice light, lively feeling, tire with a nice supple sidewall. Any okay bargain in my mind.

In goat head thorn country I found it absolutely essential to:

1. Know what the plants look like and avoid them.
2. Stay on the pavement when ever possible.
3. When you do roll off the pavement at a stop check the tires for thorns before rolling out again, even if you only roll off the pavement a few feet.
4. Be sure to get the thorns or any offending object out of the tire after a flat. Repeat flats are often due to not getting a thorn or wire out of the tire after a flat.

I know that you said no to tubeless, but if going off road in goat head country it really is the way to go. I am super impressed with the tubeless setup on my mountain bike (Stans No Flats wheels, tires, and sealant). I used to get flats regularly, but have had none since going tubeless. This with a lighter, more supple, wheel/tire setup. The ride is better and I have not had a single flat. I don't think I'd hesitate to go tubeless if I wanted to run fat tires on tour.

Some tires work very well at flat protection, but at a price in either cost or performance. I cycle a lot in the Sonoran Desert and the local wisdom is that Gatorskin tires are as good as any, but they're over $40 each. I tried Schwalbe Marathons and they're pretty bombproof, the the weight and stiffness is kind of appalling to me, and they are expensive too.

I used Mr Tuffy liners for many years in my commuting days in goathead country, and they worked well with the $10 tires I was using. The liner itself will eventually cause a flat by rubbing a ridge into the tube, but that could take a year. I put tens of thousands of miles on liners, and overall was happy with them when I needed to get to work. Now I don't commute and don't like the extra rotational weight for recreational riding.

Definitely not Slime! Horrible stuff IMO. I tried it once, first week I hit a pretty sizable object, sprayed a rooster tail of green crap all over me and the bike. Weeks later the other tube hit something smaller, and the green crap just bubbled out slowly, did nothing to seal.

I used tire liners for years and found my rate of flat tires went way down. I often had no flats on tours lasting hundreds of miles.

People always says that tire liners cause flats, but that wasn't my experience. I did trim them and then sandpaper the ends to make them as smooth as possible. In addition, when I travel with my bike, I have to remove the tires from the rims. This meant that the place on the tubes that the tire liners sat moved often, which might have prevent "rub flats" as well.

These can be quite effective: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tire-Savers-Bicycle-Research-NOS-Pair-/272088109257?hash=item3f59b710c9:g:-O4AAOSw5IJWgAy~

I don't hesitate to recommend Rhinodillo tire liners. My wife's bike was getting flats on nearly every ride-- I had a stretch of replacing maybe 10 tubes in 6 weeks. Put in the Rhinodillos and she has had absolutely zero flats since-- and this is combined with lightweight road tires, like Clement Strada LGGs (which alone would flat if looked at sideways.)

I also had very good luck with Flat Attack tubes (not Slime brand) as they would seal +90% of punctures from the typical road hazards (wire, goatheads, small glass nicks) and still take patches for larger punctures. I was getting right around 2,000 miles between flats.

Too bad the OP resists tubeless. During my time on Maxxis Re-Fuse TR, absolutely zero flats in nearly 8,000 miles.

So I would say: tubeless > Rhinodillos > Flat Attack tubes > heavy, slow-rolling, puncture resistant tires

When I get a flat on the road, I simply replace both the tube and tire with a brand new set, and fix the flat later in my tent when it is easier, in most cases. I certainly do this on rainy days. I hate sitting by the side of the road trying to hear where the puncture is and trying to find the piece which did the dastardly deed.

I have found Schwalbes to be almost bulletproof.

One advantage of a rear view mirror (of any type) is I ride to the left of the white line when there is no traffic coming up behind me; and quickly scoot over to the right when I see someone coming up. This avoids a lot of the grit that gathers on the shoulders, and cuts down on your flats, big time. I don't own the road (to me, Truckers do) but with a mirror, I control it.

Tire wipers .. or ,, just stopping, wiping sharp Debris off the tire , before it works its way in.

paying attention to the stuff on the roadway and going around it.

+1, for what it's worth, these have a tapered edge that supposedly prevents the edge-rub flat from earlier liners.

Get one of a dozen well used and recommended tires.
Check pressure on a eegular basis.
Pay attention to your line when riding.


This will equal few if any flats per year in all but the most extreme of situations when touring (goatheads etc being the exception ).

The good thing about tire liners is they are free to move laterally. If a sharp piece of glass or wire is stuck in the rubber it keeps pushing further in and can push through the tires embedded liner and eventually reach the tube. With the aftermarket liner the slight movement will rub the sharp point to a nub. That's the theory, anyway.

Boy, ive put just short of 800mi this year on some LGG 25mm tires and think theybare incredible tires.
0 flats, great grip, fast feel. This is all rural country road and inner city road riding.
I plan to switch my wife's roadbike to LGG 28s next year

I used a slime tube, had good luck. But, that was only one week of mountain biking so experience is very minimal.

I had a thorn resistant tube, the tube started to separate from the valve stem where the rubber got thin, I will never use them again.

A friend of mine that has used slime in tubes said that patches never stick when you do need a patch, he uses a different sealant but I am not sure what.

I had mixed results. Narrow tires where the liner stayed centered in the tire, worked great. I could not get liners to stay centered in the tire with a 2.0 width tire.

Some friends of mine did the southern tier with vehicle support to haul luggage, etc. One of them used a skinny tire road bike, he said he had up to seven flats a day in the southwest due to thorns. One of them decided to take his touring bike (35 or 37mm wide 700c tires) and he said he had a total of four flats for the whole trip. I do not know what his tires were but they were a conventional type of tire, not something like a Marathon Plus. If you are road riding, I think tire choice is the best way to avoid most flats.

I had good luck at dirty kanza and gravel worlds this year with putting some Orange Seal in my tubes. Remove the valve core, pour in a couple ounces, replace, no pinch flats.

This is kind of convincing.

Here is the best advise I can give you. Go to your LBS and ask what the shop guys are using.

Very likely nothing or tubeless setup.

Nice!

Of course where you choose to ride , makes a Big difference .. Austria and Switzerland, tend have less debris left
un collected and disposed of, than the US.

Do this.

Having just barely survived being hit by a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed, being "run over" and crushed, and left fighting for my life and crippled for a time stuck in a convalescent hospital unable to care for myself, I'll be staying the hell out of and off of any road shared with motor-vehicles whenever possible, and I will never be any further out in the road than I absolutely have to.

Don't want to deal with the mess and maintenance of all that goo.

I think what I'll do is get a set of good mid to high level puncture resistant Schwalbes, and then add some liners if I can find some wide enough and of reputable quality. Hopefully that will be highly effective for me.

Depends on the type of tire you use, is it MTB or road tire. MTB tires sealants work but the don't work real well with higher pressure road tires, but you have lower pressure tires so they could work. Also sealants do make the tube wet and therefore more difficult to patch.

Plastic type of liners still get punctured by goat heads, in fact I had a kevlar tire with a Mt Tuffy, and a thick thorn resistant tube with sealant and those goat heads still killed them, not as frequently as other stuff I tried but about once to twice a week I would get a flat. Plastic liners can have their ends rub a hole in a tube.

Sealants have to be reapplied about once every 6 months as well, and when there is a leak they ooze goo all over the inside of the rim staining the rim tape, and tire.

Goat heads are nasty, you can't just look for them on the road and avoid them whizzing along at 20 or so mph. The problem with riding a road bike in goat head country is that the tires becomes seemingly a rolling tire made of goat heads, you can't just stop every time you get one and pull it out, if you did that you would never get down the road!

Your first line and most important defense against flats (goat heads too) is the tire, so you need to get the best flat resistant tire you can find. Conti Country Plus, or Schwalbe Marathon HS 420.

The second line of defense would be a liner, the best liner I've found is the Panaracer FlatAway liner, this liner is very tough, a plastic liner cuts like butter with scissors but you'll hurt your hand cutting the FlatAway, I was able to drive a tack through a Mr Tuffy but I couldn't with the FlatAway, plastic liners ride harder but the FlatAway does not, plastic liners weigh about 70 grams more each over the FlatAway. All sounds good for the FlatAway right? well there are 2 cons, the con is the liner can only be used once, but that's not a bad trade off considering how difficult it is for anything to penetrate it, and the other is cost.

The third line of defense, and the least important, is the tube itself, the only one I can think of that would come close to being of any help is the Bontrager Throne Resistant tube.

The goo thing, I wouldn't bother. I think once you get a good set of tires the goo won't do anything to further help you. Personally I would experiment instead of going hole hog and buying all of the stuff I mentioned, I would buy the tires and use whatever tubes you have and not use a liner; if you still get flats then go with the liner. When I lived in Goat head country I switched to Specialize Armadillo All Condition tire with an ultra lightweight tube and nothing else and only got one flat after about 15,000 miles.

Thanks for the great info rekmeyata. I'm still doing research, and I'll add your suggestions to it.

No prob, I did make a slight error in wording by leaving word out in my last paragraph, and that is the part about trying just a tire and use whatever tube you have and NOT a liner; the word not was left out, you may have figured that out by the context of what I said.

Keep in mine too that the more flat protection a tire has the heavier it becomes, but those heavier tires are made for more endurance and thus the tread lasts a lot a longer in the wear department. I doubt once you get a good tire you'll need a liner or a chunky tube.

we all are a split second away from possible accidents. Touch wood.
I ride in traffic everyday and have most of my life and any sort of mirror is going to be a huge help in giving you a few seconds heads up for bad situations, I'm partial to helmet mounted ones for the added half a second advantage of glancing to see whats up, along with being able to turn your head slightly and keep track of whats coming into a corner behind you and the vehicle placement in the lane.
Given your unfortunate experience and reticence, using a good mirror goes a long way to reducing stress simply from easily knowing whats up slightly ahead of time.

back to flats.
what sort of environments do you ride in? I ride usually about 4-5000km per season in mostly urban environments and generally have gotten about 1 or maybe 2 flats per season, some years I don't get any.
For me, keeping an eye out for debris, avoiding it, or if I cant, taking the 30 seconds to stop and run my finger over both tires to make sure there aren't any embedded bits of glass stuck in them is my way of keeping flats to a minimum.

all teh best with getting comfortable with traffic again.