flats flats and more f'ing flats

shansey

ive recently moved from terenure to stillorgan and have picked up today my 7th flat since Christmas.

Its an old beater of a MTB with big thick tyres. Never had any trouble on the route from Terneure to IFSC!.

anyone else find the N11 bad?

Gonna have to invest in some new Kevlar tyres it seems!

Wishbone Ash

Which side of the tube - rim side or tyre side?

amcalester

Can't offer any advice but my worst run was 3 flats in 4 days at the same point in my commute, really annoying.

moonlighting

Two things. make sure your tire pressure is correct. i check on a weekly bases. get better tires. the more expensive the better lol.

helimachoptor

A couple of years back i had an issue on the UCD stretch, and the stillorgan (hill to oatlands) stretch where i probably got 15 flats in about 40 days, i put on some gator skins and have been fine since (mostly)

mr spuckler

mrs spuckler was probably racking them up at a rate of 2-3 per week at one point. threw on a pair of marathon plus and she hasn't punctured since. that was about 6 years ago

i run the same tyres and have had 2 punctures over about 8 years, both when i'd let them run a bit flatter than i should.

HivemindXX

Tyres do wear out. Check for worn patches and slits from previous problems with glass. The best way to do this is to take the tyre off and examine it carefully, flexing it one way and the other. Find where the puncture is and try to check the rim and tyre at that particular point even more carefully.

Making sure your tyres are properly inflated, as already mentioned, is the first thing to do. After that, were I in your shoes, I would just replace the tyres. Unless you are knowingly cycling over glass/thorns/other debris, which you sometimes can't avoid, worn tyres is the most likely explanation.

Fian

Make sure nothing is embedded in the tyres.

My next commuter will have tubeless tyres.

hurikane

Cycle in the middle of the road, don't cycle in the cycle lanes or hard shoulder. Much less punctures that way.

eclipsechaser

shansey wrote: »

ive recently moved from terenure to stillorgan and have picked up today my 7th flat since Christmas.

Its an old beater of a MTB with big thick tyres. Never had any trouble on the route from Terneure to IFSC!.

anyone else find the N11 bad?

Gonna have to invest in some new Kevlar tyres it seems!

I used to get a puncture every there weeks or so. I got Schwable Marathon Plus tyres and haven't had a puncture in over a year. It's a world of difference.

shansey

I feel better now that I've heard your misfortune!

hinault

All the advice has been good in this thread.

One tip, just check that the spokes in the wheel aren't protruding to cause the inner tube
to puncture.
Presumably you have rim tape on your wheel (where the inner tube meetings the surface of your wheel)?

seamus

If you're getting punctures at different points in the tyre (i.e. it's not just something embedded in the tyre), then your tyres are worn out. Old tyres puncture a lot. 7 times in 3 months is a lot.

Also big, thick, knobbly MTB tyres don't offer a lot of puncture protection on city streets. You rarely come up against anything razor-sharp and pointy out on the trails, so they're not designed to offer protection from glass.

Good city tyres (Schwalbe Marathon are the king) are made from harder, thicker, rubber and are designed with little shards of glass in mind.

I've been using Marathons since early 2011 and can count on one hand the number of punctures I've gotten in that time, no exaggeration. Replace them every 7,500km or so.

ted1

Your tyres are worn, time to replace them.

Mr. Grieves

Another vote for Marathons here!

seamus wrote: »

Also big, thick, knobbly MTB tyres don't offer a lot of puncture protection on city streets. You rarely come up against anything razor-sharp and pointy out on the trails, so they're not designed to offer protection from glass.

.

That's not really true, if you cycle off-road with tubes you will get a lot of punctures per kilometre (from thorns etc). That's one of the reasons tubeless with sealant is so good for mountain biking.