So today I had my first flat. Picked up a nail on my way home from work, no big deal I thought. Lesson #1: If you use a nail to poke a hole in the tiree side of your tube, it is almost inevitable that the nail will poke about 14 more holes in the rim side of the tube. Lesson #2: If you poke a hole in your tube by any method, the best course of action on the side of the road is to go straight to a new tube and tend to patching the old one when you get home. This was a good learning experience for me lol. I wasted a bunch of time trying to patch and pump the old tube not nowing about the 15 holes on the rim side of the tube. On a brighter note, I've recently upgraded the ride. The old rear wheel was a little out of round, had a slight flat and slight high spot. So I went with a new wheel, and while it was in the shop, I figured I might as well go all the way. I converted from a Suntour 32-14 five speed freewheel to a Shimano 28-14 six speed freewheel, which mandated a new chain and a new Shimano Tourney rear DR. Overall, I couldn't be more satisfied. The old Suntour had some really big shifts, four and five teeth per shift, and that made it hard to stay in a good cadence. The narrower range and shifts on the Shimano siix are really nice. I averaged about 2 mph faster on my am commute, and was really trucking it this afternoon until the flat happened. I farted around with that long enough to completely cool down and just couldn't spin as good as I had been for the last 2 miles home. Even with that, I still averaged 15.7 mph, so the new setup has done wonders for keeping my pace up.