What caused this puncture?

[tuscanyswe]

500 meters in to my ride i noticed i had no air left and no spare tire either for the entire last weekend away from town which would have been perfect for riding :/

once home again i took it off thinking i could probably try and fix it with some sealant. But its like this all around the base tape of the tire. Pretty weird considering it was holding air just fine till it suddenly didn't and its more or less a new tire.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7094/27004163395_fd0eb9aa93_o.gif

[rnhood]

Lots of things (road debris such as metal or glass shards, staples, nails, jewelry pieces, metal banding, pieces of autos from crashes long ago, etc). Anytime I'm away from home I carry two tubes and CO2 cartridges, as well as a mini-pump.

If that's a tubular then I can't help you. Clinchers area not subject to punctures or cuts on the underside. They are more reliable.

[tuscanyswe]

I usually carry a spare and sealant for all rides as well.

Yeah tubular. Cant c glas or whatever road debris puncturing the inside of the glued base tape / underside of the tire without puncturing the top or side of the tires at all? Not possible, something else is at fault. There are literally 100s of leaks all on the inside of the tire. Thinking something chemical is going on?!

[seanile]

Are the leaks spaced similarly to the spoke holes?

[pbarry]

No bubbles anywhere on the tread side? Conti or Veloflex?

[Cicli]

You cant really put a tubular in a tub of water and find a leak. The tube inside leaks into the tire. That then leaks out wherever it can. Not always in the location of the puncture.

[Veloo]

Never seen that or ever heard of it happening before.

Sorry for your bad luck but it kind of a cool phenomenon.

I'm curious about how it could've happened too.

[tuscanyswe]

You cant really put a tubular in a tub of water and find a leak. The tube inside leaks into the tire. That then leaks out wherever it can. Not always in the location of the puncture.

Ah, that could very well be the case here. Never needed to put a tub in the tub before but i couldn't find the leak this time until i found 100s that is .)

[tuscanyswe]

No bubbles anywhere on the tread side? Conti or Veloflex?

Nope, conti competition.

[tuscanyswe]

Are the leaks spaced similarly to the spoke holes?

Nope they seemed to be everywhere but Tihsepa´s explanation above seems to hit the spot.

[Veloo]

Duh. I was thinking clincher.

[DFORD]

tubulars will do that in water. the conti comp is a great tire, get another.

[Dead Man]

You cant really put a tubular in a tub of water and find a leak. The tube inside leaks into the tire. That then leaks out wherever it can. Not always in the location of the puncture.

This

Tubulars blow air out the sidewalls... It's often impossible to tell where the actual puncture is, if there's several cuts in the tread

[tuscanyswe]

Yeah they are nice tires. Have at least 4 other conti comps on wheels so yeah i like em too. I've always been lucky with conti tires in general until now .)

Its weird. The tread do not show any cuts or barely any signs of use at all. Put it in the water cause i couldn't find the puncture on the tire, still can't. Yet is obviously big enough so my caffelatex is not able to seal it when i try, not even with double dose. Its very annoying :mad:

[rwsaunders]

The Competition uses a butyl tube and Caffe Latex doesn't work too well from my experience with butyl tubes. Perhaps try another type of sealant and see what happens since you already pulled the tire.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/Things_that_Roll/Tires/Sealant_Test_-_Part_2_4155.html

[Satellite]

The Competition uses a butyl tube and Caffe Latex doesn't work too well from my experience with butyl tubes. Perhaps try another type of sealant and see what happens since you already pulled the tire.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/Things_that_Roll/Tires/Sealant_Test_-_Part_2_4155.html

Can you get a hold of some Stan's No Tubes works well with Butyl tubes. I switched over to Orange Seal with my Latex tubes. I never tired Orange Seal in Butyl Tubes.

Stan's will be your Huckleberry. If that doesn't work ship it off to TireAlert however shipping might cost you more than a new tire .

[tuscanyswe]

Thanks! Been meaning to try a different seal anyways. Orange seal would have been my choice but perhaps stans is worth a try. We have some at the shop so ill try that first.

[Satellite]

I really like Orange Seal. I used Stan's in my Vitty CX Tubular with latex. It didn't work very well to seal and I had to refresh it often. When I put Orange Seal in the same tyre Orange Seal came out of the sidewalls. It was the craziest thing I never seen.

I just put Orange Seal in my new Arenberg's no Orange Seal came out of the sidewalls and this time I was expecting it.

Orange Seal seems like a finer sealant Stan's is goopier (if that's a word).

I just don't know if Orange Seal works well in the buytal Tubular. Stan's Works great for my mountain bikes that I use buytal tubes and tubeless.

[oldpotatoe]

You cant really put a tubular in a tub of water and find a leak. The tube inside leaks into the tire. That then leaks out wherever it can. Not always in the location of the puncture.

Yup, what's going on. Toughest thing with patching a tubular is finding the hole.

[cmg]

to find the leak your going to have to remove the base tape un-stitch the tubular and remove the tube. look for the puncture on the surface of the tire. it's leaking inside the tubular and leaking out the cloth tape.

[Mike V]

This

Tubulars blow air out the sidewalls... It's often impossible to tell where the actual puncture is, if there's several cuts in the tread

How long have you been riding tubulars?


MV

[Neil]

If you can't find the puncture/cut, and the air comes out as fast as you put it in then it might be a pinch flat- I'm sure that's what happened to me the other day.

Usually sealant can deal with normal punctures- snake bites are too large a hole to seal though.

[tuscanyswe]

If you can't find the puncture/cut, and the air comes out as fast as you put it in then it might be a pinch flat- I'm sure that's what happened to me the other day.

Usually sealant can deal with normal punctures- snake bites are too large a hole to seal though.

Yeah perhaps so. Sealants have made most tires last the thread life for me. Its strange i didn't know you couldn't check the tubs in a tub considering I've been riding tubs more or less daily for lots of years now and it makes sense you can't.. Guess I've been lucky with my punctures mostly occurring on old tires where i wanted to put new ones on anyways or in situations where one didn't have time to investigate.

This however, dont feel right to bin a new expensive tire when you can't even find evidence of the damn puncture.

Now the question is: do i also remove the front tire as well and fit these wheels with my brand new tanned wall vittoria or do i just put my spare sprinter on, hmm tough choices..

[JStonebarger]

Still can't get over butyl in a tubular. What's the point? All the inconvenience without the single biggest advantage.

Get latex.

[bart998]

Look for a puncture or cut in the tread... then partition the tire into sections by folding sharply to isolate where the puncture is. Don't unstitch the whole tubi... very hard to re-sew and have it stay straight with no twists. Re-sew using the same needle holes.

[11.4]

It's easy to look for a puncture in the tread, and most of the time you'll get leaking from a tread hole that will give you a pretty good idea where the leak is. Hold the tire underwater with the tread upwards and hopefully you have one line of bubbles. Of course you can have other kinds of puncture that can still send bubbles to the wrong place, but the odds are usually a tread puncture, so start with that.

On Contis, you can usually spot a snakebite by a slightly whitish mark on the coating of the sidewalls. However, note that since you rode the tire flat without noticing it, you may very well be suffering from a basic puncture plus subsequent snakebiting. In that case, you may have multiple holes of different types, and possibly have more general damage to the tube.

Tihsepa's comment is the correct general one. When you have had to fix untold numbers of tubular flats, you start figuring out the odds of different kinds of problems and also figure out how to second guess your tubulars. I'd suggest that if you don't have a lot of air pressure in your tubular (i.e., no more than to make it round, not enough to make the casing hard) then it tends to come out closer to the hole in the tube. Over pressurizing your tubular makes air come out everywhere and sometimes, enigmatically, can jam the tube hole against the casing hard enough that it doesn't show any leak at all. Massaging or lightly stretching your tire with all air removed can make the puncture align with any tread cut, also making that easier. Having to go into the tire more than once to fix one flat is not a successful strategy.