Punctures!

Jovetic

:o:o

Seem to keep getting them, anyway round this

Tbf I was on bad rural roads I hadn't travelled on before which I should have probably avoided. Hit a big pothole travelling at speed downhill and blew both tyres Was lucky I was thrown off the bike tbf.

Had one spare tube and a repair kit but bailed out and phoned home to collect me

Should I be carrying two spare tubes around? Am I right in saying tubes that are blown out from hitting a pothole are not repairable? I can never see/hear where the air is escaping.

Seems like everytime I go out I get a puncture and it's really starting to bug me :mad: Might just stick to national roads in future

Zyzz

What tyres are they? Some are puncture resistant, but sacrifice ride comfort etc. (gatorskins/marathons)

Also repair the tubes when you get home, fill a basin with water, pump air into the tube and make sure every bit of the tyre gets submerged..when you see air bubbles, hole found!

Dotsie~tmp

If you dont care about how a tyre rolls or how heavy it is, its Schwalbe Marathon . If speed means anything its Gatorskin, Durano Plus or Bontager Hardcase. Cant speak for Gator but the Bont hasturned a 60km per hole to 400km and counting despite me deliberatley not avoiding glass patches any more (its chronic around here). Its nice and fast too plus the best bit. Its usually 1/2 the price of the rest.

rob w

I cycle alot on crappy roads aswell, bought my bike back in september and had two punctures with the stock tires in the first 100km.......since changing to gatorskins i havent had a single puncture and i have 1000km+ on them, also ridden them through glass and other debris a couple of times! As far as ride comfort goes, i think they ride perfectly fine, can still get speed and stability, but with no other more comfortable tire to compare them to i wouldnt know the difference anyway!

Jovetic

How much are we talking for a decent set of tyres?

Arthurdaly

Get a set of gqatoskin tyres and ignore the negative reviews here.

rob w

I think my gatorskins were around €60 - €70 for the pair!

Dotsie~tmp

Gators €50 pair.

http://www.cyclesportsuk.co.uk/product_info.php?country_for_tax=103&products_id=1183&osCsid=vplco8pb0ohu6f2plsm1nu2b83#scroll_to_here

Bontrager Race Hardcase €37 pair delivered

www.allterraincycles.co.uk/.Bontrager-Race-Lite-Hard-Case-Road-Tyre_119612.htm

Unregistered.

Arthurdaly wrote: »

Get a set of gqatoskin tyres and ignore the negative reviews here.

+1. Bombproof tires. I ride them year round and I've yet to have a single puncture. Current set are well over a year old with several thousand kilometres on them.

souter

Hi, I've had an incredible bad run of punctures recently so I've built up a backlog of my half-arsed repairs - leak a bit but get me home.

Is there any point in pulling off the patches and trying to get it right a second time?

thejaguar

I've had huge problems with punctures over the last couple of years. Commuting between Rathfarnham & Sandyford and went through a phase were I was getting 2 or 3 each week. Total nightmare.
Got a set of Gatorskins and they've reduced a ton. I still get the odd one - I'm cycling over glass and all sorts of crap every day - can't avoid it.
I just patch the tube up when I get home and throw it in my bag as a spare.

I've also take to picking out all the old bits of glass and debris from the tyres with a pen knife every once in a while.

No complaints about speed or ride with the Gatorskins and they've defo helped a lot with the punctures.

droidus

I somehow managed to get 8 punctures in my front tube this morning. No glass in the tyre, nothing stuck in the rim. Dont know how it happened.

petethedrummer

souter wrote: »

half-arsed repairs

The key to good puncture repair is to use the solution very sparingly and let it dry for at least 5 mins before you apply the patch.

The natural urge is always to use loads of glue and apply the patch immediately. Don't do that. The instructions that come with the pack are correct.

droidus

What's the story with self-adhesive patches? Ive used them a few times in the past and they seem solid enough, but there must be a downside right?

cdaly_

droidus wrote: »

What's the story with self-adhesive patches? Ive used them a few times in the past and they seem solid enough, but there must be a downside right?

I found they don't keep well. Probably ok to get you home but do a proper patch later.

bambergbike

Dotsie~tmp wrote: »

If you dont care about how a tyre rolls or how heavy it is, its Schwalbe Marathon

You're right, of course, but it's all relative. I live in hope that my bike will roll like a dream once I finally say goodbye to wide, knobbly, spiky Schwalbe Winters and put narrow and semi-slick Marathons back on.

souter

petethedrummer wrote: »

The key to good puncture repair is to use the solution very sparingly and let it dry for at least 5 mins before you apply the patch.

The natural urge is always to use loads of glue and apply the patch immediately. Don't do that. The instructions that come with the pack are correct.

That I know, but I'm not very good at following it. My question is where I haven't for whatever reason, can I rip off the patch and start again?

TonyStark

droidus wrote: »

I somehow managed to get 8 punctures in my front tube this morning. No glass in the tyre, nothing stuck in the rim. Dont know how it happened.

There could be something caught in your tyre on the inside. I had a small shard of metal lodge in mine. Be careful it could be the size of a pin!

droidus

Yeah, thats what I assumed, but I checked about 10 times, and the new tube is fine. Must've run over a stinger.

TonyStark

droidus wrote: »

Yeah, thats what I assumed, but I checked about 10 times, and the new tube is fine. Must've run over a stinger.

Literally what I had was a fleck!

souter

Here's my recent experience:

Been crowing for several years to less hardened commuter about only having the odd puncture, due to choice of gatorskines/bontrager race case, and keeping them pumped to the max.

Then over the course of month I seemed to be puncturing once a week. On the back wheel, which is a pain on a single speed.

Each time I'd forensically mark the relative location of the valve to the tyre, find the puncture, and scrutinise the tyre till I found something, anything, that could conceivably have been the cause. Then hack away at the tyre till something was dislodged.
Then puncture again in a week's time and repeat the process.

This weekend swallowed my pride and bought a new tyre to replace the swiss cheese I had remaining, fitted it Sunday night and looked forward to a worry free Monday commute.

Monday, tyre is soft. Bollocks. Pump it up and manage the 8k to work with only the last bit seriously squishy.

Finish work, pump up that fecker to get home but barely make 100m before it's completely flat. Bollock, bollocks, etc. Have no option but to change the tube in the snowy night. This fecking fix needs two pump ups before I get home.

Great, back to square one. Do I spend another hour getting filthy in my useless attempts to diagnose and fix punctures? Or do I feck the whole thing into the nearest canal and buy a car?

Give it one last chance. Fill up the basin and examine first flat - it's the valve, wasn't screwed in properly. Good(ish) - I'm not fossicking about in yet another tyre, but pissed off I did an unneccessary tube replacement in ****ty weather.
Second flat, it was one of my backup tubes and surprise surprise the patch on it was fizzing like a geyser in the basin.

So what have I learnt?

1) A tyre costs c. 40-60 quid. A puncture costs 1 hour of your time and spoils teh rest of the day. Do the math - if you've had more than 5 punctures on the same tyre and are still using it, maybe you're not valuing your own time correctly.
2) check the valve before embarking on the woe that is getting a tyre on and off, then trying to get the chain grease of your hands.
3) Repair the punctured tube diligently, rather than thinking "it just needs to stay vaguely ok till I get home".*

*And regarding fixing punctures, couple things that may be relevant,
as per petethedrummer, trust the solution. For me this also means :

Wait till tacky. Then wait another minute. Then be sure it really was an extra minute before reaching for the patch.

A spare tube is not a second class tube - a little leak will not magically get better after a few months in your saddle bag. Do the job properly and either put it on the wheel, or at least leave it pumped up overnight and fix again if it is soft in the morning

NeedMoreGears

I am a fan (or cheapskate depending on your view) of repairing tubes. Following a repair I normally reinstall the repaired tube within a day or two so that I can be sure its a good repair. As Souter suggests, leaving it pumped up overnight it a good ceheck. I prefer to try to keep new patch free tubes in the saddle bag so that I have to change a tube out on the road, I can be reasonably certain it's a good one.