Sheldon Brown <
[email protected]> wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> David Reuteler wrote:
>
> > i've been getting a much higher number of flats with
> > avocet fasgrip 25/28mm (wired kevlar version) than with
> > the vittoria rubino pro 23mm on my commuter. both sets
> > new, same terrain (idaho, goathead thorn country to be
> > sure but not currently) but with less miles going to the
> > avocets.
> >
> > on the vittorias my last flat was early december. on the
> > avocets i had 2 this past weekend alone. both exterior
> > from road debris. for a given ride (30 to 60 miles) it
> > seems to be a 50/50 shot whether i get a flat.
> >
> > it's driving me nuts. the avocets were fine in
> > minnesota. i like 'em. but i'm about to switch out to
> > the rubino pros on that bike as well. anyone out here in
> > goathead thorn country have any different experiences
> > with avocets? they also seem to slice (knick?) like the
> > vittoria open corsas.
>
> I doubt this has anything to do with the type of tires,
> but I would expect that for punctures by sharp objects,
> wider tires would be at slightly greater risk due to the
> larger swept area.
>
> Generally, the reduced risk of "snake bite" pinch flats
> with wider tires more than compensates for this.
>
> Goat heads are not something we have in New England, and
> I'm not familiar with their life cycle, but if they're
> like other plant seeds, their distribution will vary
> according to the time of year.
>
> Sheldon "No Goats" Brown +-----------------------------------------------------
> +
> | We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, | or
> | rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. | --Abraham
> | Lincoln |
> +-----------------------------------------------------+
Dear Sheldon,
August turns out to be the cruellest[1] month.
From 1996 to 2003, I recorded 169 flats on my daily ride in
Colorado, the vast majority from goat head stickers.
There does seem to be a seasonal rise in flats, roughly
around the summer vacation, and a blesséd break around the
beginning of winter (Sheldon should appreciate the phrase
from Lowell's[2] "For the Union Dead."
If anything refutes astrology, it is the decline in
goatheads during Capricorn (December 22nd to January 10th).
(I always thought that Madame Sosostris was a charlatan.)
Only 169 flats in 8 years strikes me as suspiciously low,
but the explanation is that from 1996 through 1999 I used
thorn-resistant tubes and tire-liners. Only when I
foolishly abandoned them in 2000 did I begin to average 35
flats instead of 7 per year (so far, 8 in 2004 not included
in the table.
Carl Fogel
[1] Eliot's -ll- may be cruel to some gentil parfait [3]
readers, but then Chaucer is no kinder with his
"Aprille."
[2] The double-l's just keep a-comin'. Nice new aquarium.
Nice old bas-relief.
[3] Even more obscure joke--look up the full couplet, which
hardly applies to the anonymous parfait gentil knyght.
Eliot makes folk like me think of footnotes to footnotes
that hardly explain things.