On Thu, 26 Oct 2006 06:49:51 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>On 25 Oct 2006 23:58:48 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>In my last sixty 15-mile rides, I've had 15 flat tires, an average of a
>>flat tire every sixty miles.
>
>Wow, that's a lot of flats. I guess those goatheads are really bad.
>If the problem is something more mundane - like glass --, try Mr.
>Tuffy. I'd expect that in 60 rides like that with Mr. Tuffy you'd get
>one or zero flats -- at least that's my experience riding on roads in
>and around New York City, which have a fair amount of glass and other
>debris on the roads. Though maybe they can't beat goatheads.
Dear John,
It's just an annoying recent spate of bad luck.
I was having much better luck earlier in the year and foolishly
imagined that things were somehow improving.
It really illustrates nothing more than regional variation. I just
happen to live in an area where the soil and climate encourage
puncture vine.
But despite my pathetic whimpering, I can easily point to a place with
far worse goathead trouble. If I turned north at the dam and rode up
the bluffs to Pueblo West, I'd want a mountain bike with knobby tires,
Mr. Tuffy, thorn-resistant tubes, and Slime. Local bike shops hate to
sell touring bikes to people who live in Pueblo West, since it's
common to flat on goatheads by the end of your first block.
If I were to use Jobst's logic, I'd insist that Michelin wire flats
are a myth. I've read about Michelin wire flats on RBT, but I've never
had one, despite about 30,000 miles on a 65-mph stretch of highway.
Really, it's absurd to think that a little piece of wire (probably
lying flat) could somehow fly up and pierce a bicycle tire! We don't
hear of car tires suffering such flats. Since I've never had one and
my theory denies them, they must be myth and--
A friend borrowed a bicycle a year or two ago, rode about 20 miles on
a similar highway with far less traffic about six miles south of my
daily ride, and told me that he had an odd flat. It was, he said, just
a tiny little piece of wire that caused a slow leak.
Michelin wire, I explained, trying to look bored and experienced. Very
common.
Then I betrayed my excitement and asked if he had kept the little
wire. He hadn't, and I broke down and confessed that I'd read about
Michelin wire flats on RBT, but that I'd never seen one before.
As for Mr. Tuffy strips, I think that they probably work quite well
where glass and wires and similar debris are a problem. The strips
also help with goatheads, but only against goatheads that you run
right over.
Unfortunately, about half the goatheads go through either side of the
tire. They can stick up from the ground enough to jab at the
sidewalls, particularly if you're turning and tilting to one side.
Indeed, the hardest thorns to spot and dig out of the tire are the
ones broken off where the tread and sidewall meet.
So I use Slime tubes, which often get me home. When I fix a flat and
later check the tube, it's not unusual to find several sealed goathead
punctures.
For me, this is normal. But I don't recommend Slime or Mr. Tuffy or
other anti-flat measures for most riders on RBT because my impression
is that, like Jobst, most people suffer only 6-8 flats (or fewer) per
year. And I wouldn't be surprised to find that Slime tubes don't wrok
well where glass is the problem, since Slime doesn't work well against
bigger holes and slits.
My disagreement with Jobst about flints is based on:
a) finding nasty little shark-tooth-shaped rock flakes in my flat
tires opposite nasty little slits in the tubes (happily reduced since
the sand-and-gravel pit on my daily ride closed)
b) other RBT posters reporting that flint flats are a routine problem
where they live (like "Michelin wire," "flint" is a UK/European term)
c) glass chips cause flats, so it's strange to argue that rock chips
are somehow unable to do the same thing (google flint knapping, or
just cut yourself on the right kind of rock)
Cheers,
Carl Fogel