Flat City

[Ginger]

It had to happen. I've had a pretty good run without flats. I went about four years without a flat, then changed tire brands two years ago and promptly flatted out during the memorable Tour de Finger Lakes. Then I started another streak of unflatness with those tires that ran to this March when I flatted a rear tire on the Blue Ridge Parkway (cold, windy, alone, good contemplative frozen finger tire change.)

I loaded my bike in the morning, checked the front tire in the wheel bag and it was aired up, so I left my floor pump at home. The day wore on and I wound up with time for a late ride after work at the local metro park. When I get there, I pull my front wheel out of its wheel bag and its flatter than a pancake. DANG.

I borrow a floor pump from a concerned rider in the parkinglot. I go through the standard routine...can't find anything in the tire or wheel and can't find a hole in the tube (must be gremlins) so I put my spare tube in, pump it up to 110, and get on with my life. I wind up riding with the gentleman who loaned me the floor pump (why can't these guys be single?).

Half hour into the ride the front tire is flaccid again. Didn't hit anything that I noticed, just flat. We stop, do the whole routine again. I used my spare tube, so I take the time to find the holes and patch the tube, (strange slices about a half inch from the valve on tire side of the tube) air it up with Co2 and away we go. A half hour later, on the second lap of the park we're cruising past the place I flatted and the tire goes flat again!
Drat!

We air it up and take it easy back to the parking lot.

Turns out the first tube (that was flat in the car) has a similar slice in it at the same place the second tube did...two different brand tubes...I'll be going over the wheel with a fine tooth comb 'cause I really can't find anything that would cause that sort of slice.

So...20 miles, 3 flats. I seem to have lost my anti-flat charm. Anyone have an anti-flat ritual that works?

On the positive side, I have a new riding buddy who has proven that he has a good sense of humor and is tolerant of ride interuptions. (There's a good side to everything.)

[alancw3]

funny, last night i go for a very short ride on a route that only takes me a few miles in each direction for my house (figure i would do the loop several times) so i don't take my fanny pack in which i carry an extra tube and mini pump. well wouldn't you know it, i get a flat at the farthest possible point away from home. this is like my first flat in at least two possibly three years. so i have to hoof it home wearing cleats. anyway i guess i got a little cocky about never getting a flat anymore. i have actually ridden several times recently w/o the f.p. i just hope this isn't going to be the beginning of a string of flats. i use to get flats more often but change tires more frequently now. needless to say i will not venture out w/o the f.p. again.

i don't have an anti-flat ritual but i can feel for you. three in one night! talk about a bummer. anyway check the inside of the tire. sounds like your problem could be tire related i.e. tire cord. thorn, fine piece of glass or something imbedded in tire not reduly seen or felt. you might have to flex the tire to feel it. good luck.

[Ginger]

Yep. I actually have a new tire for the wheel, I just hadn't put it on yet.

And the guy who helped me wouldn't accept anything but thanks for his trouble. Perhaps it's just payback for all the other people I've helped on my rides (I always ask even if there's already a crowd...six people...no chain tool...go figure.)

[Sandy]

Where on the tube were the cuts? Was it on the surface facing the ground, sidewalls rim,...? Do you center your tires, so that you can determine where on the wheel the flat occurred? Could you determine that?


PSI Sandy

[Ginger]

Yep Sandy,
That's how I could tell it was the same thing causing the flat in both tubes. It's in the same place on each tube on the tread side. (that close to the valve, it doesn't have much choice but to be away from the rim strip and rim.)
I'll check it all over again today...and maybe burn some sage around the wheel before I put a brand new tire and tube on. ;)

I'm thinking the wheel was just feeling a little left out. I had put a new tire on the rear and I had a new one for the front and didn't have time to install it.

[RABikes2]

Ginger,
Check the tire (flex if necessary) for a tiny, thin piece of wire (from steel belted radials). I've experienced it and seen it at the shop, so tiny and fine and oh, can it cause a flat... :crap:
For a ritual, try a banana dance :banana: around your bike, might not help, but you and your new bud will get a laugh out of it! :banana:
RA

[Ginger]

Found the culprit this morning. In the right place anyhow. Black and crumbly and looked like pavement. Go figure. Didn't seem like a wire...very odd.

The second flat was caused by a slow leak. I located it when examining the tube and tire this morning. Very small puncture, very slow leak.

The tire is being retired to the trainer pile. I probably have enough miles on it, I probably have enough years on it! (just about two I think...)

[MartyE]

I've found that for those unexplained flats a piece of cotton run
along the inside of the tire usually offers up the culprit that my eyes
can't find. cotton snags on wire/glass sliver/defect of tire taking
all the quess work and mystery out of the process.
That is that was my technique before I quit riding clinchers

marty

[Ginger]

Oooo good tip! I'll add a cotton ball to the saddle bag arsenal (not like it takes up any room)

[Serpico]

Detroit Flat City

[davids]

10 minutes into this morning's ride, I suddenly realized, "I didn't bring my CO2!" No one else shows up for the 'group' ride, so I paid extra careful attention to avoiding debris for the whole ride. A few minutes from home, I started to relax, figuring that even if I flatted at that point, I could walk home in reasonable shape. I seem to have beat the curse.

When I got home, I realized that I'd had the CO2 the whole time, nestled so deeply in my jersey pocket that I couldn't feel it at all. So, that explains why I didn't get a flat!

[Grant McLean]

I borrow a floor pump from a concerned rider in the parkinglot. ... I wind up riding with the gentleman who loaned me the floor pump (why can't these guys be single?).


dang. I hadn't thought of hanging around in parking lots with a pump.
This must be why i'm still single?

g

[Ginger]

dang. I hadn't thought of hanging around in parking lots with a pump.
This must be why i'm still single?

g

Yes. Yes it is.

[bostondrunk]

It had to happen. I've had a pretty good run without flats. I went about four years without a flat, then changed tire brands two years ago and promptly flatted out during the memorable Tour de Finger Lakes. Then I started another streak of unflatness with those tires that ran to this March when I flatted a rear tire on the Blue Ridge Parkway (cold, windy, alone, good contemplative frozen finger tire change.)

I loaded my bike in the morning, checked the front tire in the wheel bag and it was aired up, so I left my floor pump at home. The day wore on and I wound up with time for a late ride after work at the local metro park. When I get there, I pull my front wheel out of its wheel bag and its flatter than a pancake. DANG.

I borrow a floor pump from a concerned rider in the parkinglot. I go through the standard routine...can't find anything in the tire or wheel and can't find a hole in the tube (must be gremlins) so I put my spare tube in, pump it up to 110, and get on with my life. I wind up riding with the gentleman who loaned me the floor pump (why can't these guys be single?).

Half hour into the ride the front tire is flaccid again. Didn't hit anything that I noticed, just flat. We stop, do the whole routine again. I used my spare tube, so I take the time to find the holes and patch the tube, (strange slices about a half inch from the valve on tire side of the tube) air it up with Co2 and away we go. A half hour later, on the second lap of the park we're cruising past the place I flatted and the tire goes flat again!
Drat!

We air it up and take it easy back to the parking lot.

Turns out the first tube (that was flat in the car) has a similar slice in it at the same place the second tube did...two different brand tubes...I'll be going over the wheel with a fine tooth comb 'cause I really can't find anything that would cause that sort of slice.

So...20 miles, 3 flats. I seem to have lost my anti-flat charm. Anyone have an anti-flat ritual that works?

On the positive side, I have a new riding buddy who has proven that he has a good sense of humor and is tolerant of ride interuptions. (There's a good side to everything.)

7 words:
tubulars

[gasman]

7 words:
tubulars


Good one.


Tubulars are less prone to flats ? I know you don't get pinch flats but what about debris ? The crap on the roads here seem to cause most of my flats.

[39cross]

Oooo good tip! I'll add a cotton ball to the saddle bag arsenal (not like it takes up any room)
Sorry...couldn't resist...*another* use for cotton balls...queue Jerry Seinfeld:

[Scene: Comedy club.]

JERRY: ...women seem to need a lot of cotton-balls. This is the one I'm, always has been one of the amazing things to me...I have no cotton-balls, we're all human beings, what is the story? I've never had one...I never bought one, I never needed one, I've never been in a situation, when I thought to myself: "I could use a cotton-ball right now"...I can certainly get out of this mess...Women need them and they don't need one or two, they need thousands of them, they need bags, they're like peat-moss bags, have you ever seen these giant bags? They're huge and two days later, they're out, they're gone, the, the bag is empty, where are the cotton-balls, ladies? What are you doin' with them? The only time I ever see'em is in the bottom of your little waste basket, there's two or three, that look like they've been through some horrible experience... tortured, interrogated, I don't know what happened to them...

[Ginger]

Hmmm...I don't get it...
I've had the same 100 count bag of cotton balls for 10 years...

[39cross]

Well, it seemed funny at the time...but come to think of it, we've also had the same bag of cotton balls for at least the past ten years. So I'll bring some extras with me to Deerfield.

[Ginger]

NOOO this gives me the opportunity to use some of them!