Had a puncture today

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
niggle
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by niggle »

My last puncture was on 24th October last year: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82977&hilit=puncture&start=75#p832413 having had one a month earlier on 25th September. However prior to that I had not had one since March 2011- punctures are definitely random events!
geocycle
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by geocycle »

niggle wrote:My last puncture was on 24th October last year: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82977&hilit=puncture&start=75#p832413 having had one a month earlier on 25th September. However prior to that I had not had one since March 2011- punctures are definitely random events!


Yes I agree. Sometimes you get clusters because of the type of road or some tyre defect but mainly they are random. One thing I find is that I have twice had punctures within the first couple of months on new tyres and then none for years. Do tyres 'harden' in some way or was this also just chance?
axel_knutt
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by axel_knutt »

My worst cluster was in 2000, I had a total of 26 punctures in the space of 291 days and 2695 miles.
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Brucey
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by Brucey »

crikey, that was about one every 100 miles! Any reason for it, in hindsight...?

cheers
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ferrit worrier
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by ferrit worrier »

I'm not tempting fate, suffice to say from memory I've not taken a tyre off in over 4,000 miles. The back one is due to be changed as it's now got quite a wide worn area but I do keep them hard, typically 110 psi. ( Conti Gatorskins ) The front looks like it's good for a few more K's I'm leaving it on to see what sort of mileage I'll get out of it. The front has now done over 4,300 from new. I built the bike in June 2014 after my Giant was stolen from work, with an impending end to end in August I needed a bike to train for it. The bike was stolen on the Tuesday, Wednesday Mrs FW and I had a chat about bikes which basically amounted to you need one "go for it" Phone call to Paul in the Bike shop (Rick Greens Handforth) Thursday am frame, groupset etc ordered, Friday picked up parts Sat / Sunday built wheels and bike Monday back on road. following weekend out on a training run less than 100 miles on clock ran over a large chunk of limestone ripped tyre wall. managed to repair it, got home. Monday new tyre within another 100 miles same thing but worse than the first managed to do a repair on the first tyre,( I found a piece of rubberised canvas in an old puncture outfit) and it's been fine.

Why have they stopped putting that rubberised canvas in the puncture outfits?

Malc
Percussive maintainance, if it don't fit, hit it with the hammer.
Manc33
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by Manc33 »

lol @ remembering the exact date of the last one. :P
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niggle
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Location: Cornwall, near England

Re: Had a puncture today

Post by niggle »

geocycle wrote:
niggle wrote:My last puncture was on 24th October last year: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=82977&hilit=puncture&start=75#p832413 having had one a month earlier on 25th September. However prior to that I had not had one since March 2011- punctures are definitely random events!


Yes I agree. Sometimes you get clusters because of the type of road or some tyre defect but mainly they are random. One thing I find is that I have twice had punctures within the first couple of months on new tyres and then none for years. Do tyres 'harden' in some way or was this also just chance?

The weird thing is the two close together last year were different bikes and tyres and different causes (one thorn and one sharp shard of plastic), but both were front punctures even though those are supposed to be less common.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
Depends what you ride on (terrain) I Toured Dartmoor on some semi slick 26x1.9" with camping gear, that's ALL ride-able terrain over three years with only about two punctures.
My training ground has me pulling my hair out every ride.

The only difference is this, Dartmoor is full of Old worn weathered grit and sand, gravel, boulders etc, etc etc.

My training ground has two new newly laid grit cycle paths.
There's grit, thorns from cuttings, broken bottle's etc.

Every 36 mile trip means I need to spend time picking out the stuff, repairing slits for next time..........why don't I change the course? Because its a tough course ideal for all fitness building :(
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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pwa
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by pwa »

I reckon the puncture rate that we experience is largely down to where we ride. I don't get many. One or two a year, perhaps. My main tyres are Panracer Paselas, but I also use Conti Grand Prix 4 Seasons and have done a lot of miles on Gatorskins. All have been fine. I have felt no need to seek out heavier, harder to fit tyres just for increased puncture resistance. But I think this is because I have less exposure to puncture causing debris than some people. I read of people having flats caused by flints. We don't have flints here. When I do get a puncture it is usually caused by a thorn, which we certainly do have. And the thorn season is underway. I must remember to keep checking the tyres after rides to get the thorns before they have worked their way through. I subscribe to the theory that a lot of punctures can be avoided this way, because thorns, glass and other sharp stuff takes time to work through the tyre and can often be pulled out before they get through.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
And some people's preference for some tyres claiming that they good at P*&^% protection is more down to the terrain rather than the claimed (manufacture) superior protection.

In my experience the PP strip integral (moulded in) is pretty useless with thorns even small ones, flints (cycle paths) and glass, one ride two thorns, one of blunt glass and a 5mm slit through the strip in just 37 miles............after heavy rain, which washes out all the virgin rubbish.
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foxyrider
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by foxyrider »

Rain indeed - the four punctures i've had this lasty year (after over 2 years without any) have all been in wet weather or days with lots of wet - tyres have been Pasela, Gatorskin and GP4000s, all with no more than 1000 miles use.
Convention? what's that then?
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Graham O
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by Graham O »

I've been commuting 2 or 3 days a week for the last 10 years or so and had my first (commuting) puncture last night on the way home. The most annoying thing is that I couldn't find anything in the tyre, nor any hole to indicate penetration, and had the same a few weeks ago; a puncture with no apparent entry. They were both single holes on the outside of the tube so not snakebite punctures. Either there is something in the tyre which is makes itself felt when I hit a pothole or there is something loose in the tyre.

Besides these 2 punctures this year, I can't remember the last one I had, so not a bad record.
Brucey
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by Brucey »

you could have something tiny embedded within the tread thickness; when this happens the offending item can nibble at the tube, once every turn of the wheel, yet lie beneath the surface when you feel for pointy bits sticking through the tyre.

I have had about a dozen punctures from a single skinny strand of steel wire this way. Even when I'd found the thing I could hardly see it or get it out of the tyre. At rest it protruded from neither surface.

The only way to find such objects is to be absolutely anal about recording the orientation of the tube vs the tyre so that you know exactly where to look.

cheers
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gaz
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by gaz »

Today I got a puncture, outside Halfords although I didn't realise it until I got back home.

Halfords' rubbish bins were overflowing across NCN1 and I picked up a likely looking tube, it's only when I got it home that it became clear it was punctured beyond repair.

I'd have picked up the Exage brake calipers that were sitting next to it too but the fleet all take cantis or Vs. I might be able to beat the Elite bottle cage back into shape. Still the RD-6500 Ultegra rear mech and FD-4400 Tiagra front look like they still have plenty of life in them yet and need little more than a clean, so it wasn't a total loss :wink: .
Last edited by gaz on 10 May 2017, 10:55pm, edited 1 time in total.
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axel_knutt
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Re: Had a puncture today

Post by axel_knutt »

Brucey wrote:crikey, that was about one every 100 miles! Any reason for it, in hindsight...?

cheers


Millennium bug probably. May 8 2000 was a good day, four punctures in one 17 mile ride. The last one I had was about 8900 miles ago in Oct 2010.
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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