Always Getting Punctures



Grimp

New Member
May 13, 2015
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My inner tube keeps getting punctures, the tire on my bike are a little old but they are not too worn down, they are still perfectly usable, but i always find thorns making punctures in my inner tubes, I dont want to waste more money on inner tubes, Shall i buy new tires?
 
Maybe you should stop riding on thorns.

Seriously, there isn't a tire or tube made that is perfectly impervious to thorns. With better tires, all you're buying is time. Time to find the thorns and pull them out before they make holes in your tubes.
 
You can patch about 10 tubes with a 3 euro patch kit... That's a 27 euro profit compared to 10 new tubes. :D

But yeah, if you ride on thorns alot you need something really hardcore like these Schwalbe Marathon tires that supposedly have a flat proof protection so thick that you can push a tack on them and still ride (or that's how they are advertised anyway).

They are quite expensive though and they are mad heavy.

+1 on avoiding riding on thorns...
 
Ride so fast that the thorns can't catch up and stick themselves in your tire.

Duh.
 
I believe you can ride a bike and not get thorns to penetrate the casing, I know because I did it living in Goathead country out in the Mojave Desert of California. How did I do that you ask? I used Specialized All Condition Armadillo tires and a light weight racing tube and went flat free for over 15,000 miles. The new Armadillos have lost weight, and I haven't used the new ones since I moved from that area to an area free of thorns, so I can't vouch for the new ones vs the old ones in that thorn proofness.

While living in the Mojave Desert I did discover some things though, that not even Conti Gatorskin tire with a Mr Tuffy flat liner and a thorn resistant tube stopped the mighty Goathead. The old Armadillos were heavy at around 550 grams per tire for a 700x25, the new ones are now 395, still chubby for a road tire, if you want a lighter tire then try either the Specialized Roubaix Armadillo Elite or maybe the Roubaix Pro if you want even a lighter tire, or try the Hutchinson Intensive Hardskin tire (they make two types, clincher and tubeless, make sure you get the right one for your needs). Either of those 3 could work but to be safe I would add a Panaracer FlatAway liner, this liner is a one tire use liner, it sticks to the tire so it doesn't keep moving like the Mr Tuffy making you wonder after you installed it if it remained in place; and the FlatAway liner is far tougher than the Mr Tuffy and about 2/3rds lighter in weight. I took a tack and drove it fairly easily through a Mr Tuffy, but I couldn't even get the tack to penetrate the FlatAway even with my thumb pressing down over the top of the point of the tack dooming my thumb to injury yet the tack would not penetrate. Cutting the Mr Tuffy with household scissors was like cutting medium soft butter, but I was hurting my hand trying to cut through the FlatAway!

Nowadays I use the FlatAway liner only on the rear tire because that's where most of the flats occur, but again I have no thorns anymore, if was in Goathead country I would use either the Specialized All Condition Armadillo or maybe the Roubaix Armadillo Elite with the FlatAway liner at least in the rear and only put it in the front if for some highly unlikely event that the thorns were getting through the lighter Armadillo series of tires.

Also a thought came to me, that if you are leaning more towards a lighter tire rather than something heavy like the All Condition Armadillo you could use the Roubaix Armadillo Elite on the rear and the Roubaix Pro on the front with a FlatAway liner in each tire.

If you do go with a Specialized tire with a FlatAway liner you do not need a heavy thorn resistant tube, get the lightest tube you feel comfortable with.
 

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