I started out a road rider, had a crash, converted to mountain and am just now coming back to my roots. I missed the speed and open road.
I picked up an old Cannondale 3.0 with funky campy rims that use tubular tires. I have been out riding 5 times and have had 4 flats. Of course, it could just be the law of averages but does anyone else have this problem?
When I rode 10 year ago, I had very few flats and was using 'old' clincher style rims.
It has been 2 small rocks (sharp shale), a staple, and a random peice of metal. I am debating the purchase of some clincher rims and tires. I ride on primary roads here in Vancouver Canada.
Tubulars suck for training unless you are lucky enough to live where there is hardly any road debris, thorns, etc. I would buy a set of clincher wheels and save the tubies for racing. You will still get the same number of flats but you will be able to easily repair or replace the tube.
With the right clincher tires, running 100 psi or so, you should rarely get flats. If your roads are littered with junk, you may need to move up to a heavy-duty tire like Ultra Gatorskins or Armadillos. Depending on your weight, additional width might be a good idea as well (eg, a 25 or 28 mm tire).
No reason to put up with flats on every ride or even monthly, IMO. Less than one flat per 1000 miles should be easy to attain.
Yeah clinchers are the way to go. Myself I started using what I consider a cheap tire. The "Forte" Kevlar road tires at performance bicycle. These babys haven't given me a flat in over a year. I've used both the 23 and 20's and I prefer the 20's for daily training, they wear well, but skinny tires always wear a little faster. I also us ultralight tubes with no liner and I pretty much run over anything I like.
As far as racing I will only use Kevlar, because if you get a flat even with the wheel vehicle behind you, you're pretty much screwed.
I started out a road rider, had a crash, converted to mountain and am just now coming back to my roots. I missed the speed and open road.
I picked up an old Cannondale 3.0 with funky campy rims that use tubular tires. I have been out riding 5 times and have had 4 flats. Of course, it could just be the law of averages but does anyone else have this problem?
When I rode 10 year ago, I had very few flats and was using 'old' clincher style rims.
It has been 2 small rocks (sharp shale), a staple, and a random peice of metal. I am debating the purchase of some clincher rims and tires. I ride on primary roads here in Vancouver Canada.
Does anyone have input ?
Bish
It's likely just bad luck. Tubulars generally are a little more suseptible to tread penetration by metal slivers and the like, but you probably would have had three of those four flats with clinchers too. If you want a really flat resistant tire then you can do some good things with clinchers but if you get racing/training light clinchers there won't be much flat advantage over tubulars.
Also, learn where such road debris collects and don't ride through it.
That seems a bit extreme. Over 1,000 miles this year and no flats. Riding clinchers though. I only ride tubulars when the team car follows close behind😉
I've been riding tubies almost exclusively for the past two years. To date, I've had two flats, and one was my fault for taking a shortcut down a street with lots of [censored] on the shoulders. The two prior years, I rode clinchers and got four flats. Statistically speaking, not enough flats to draw any conclusions about which is less puncture prone.
If you're getting a lot of flats riding tubies, you will get a lot of flats riding clinchers - the problem is most likely where you are riding and what is on the road. In that respect, clinchers make more sense as they are easier to repair.
Just a thought... Are some of those tires as old as the bike... 🙂 Casings degrade over time, which will lead to flats that new tires wouldn't have succumbed to. I'm in Vancouver too, so when you get the tire thing sorted out let me know and we can do some laps of the park together.
John Swanson www.bikephysics.com
s_bishop said:
I started out a road rider, had a crash, converted to mountain and am just now coming back to my roots. I missed the speed and open road.
I picked up an old Cannondale 3.0 with funky campy rims that use tubular tires. I have been out riding 5 times and have had 4 flats. Of course, it could just be the law of averages but does anyone else have this problem?
When I rode 10 year ago, I had very few flats and was using 'old' clincher style rims.
It has been 2 small rocks (sharp shale), a staple, and a random peice of metal. I am debating the purchase of some clincher rims and tires. I ride on primary roads here in Vancouver Canada.
Just a thought... Are some of those tires as old as the bike... 🙂 Casings degrade over time, which will lead to flats that new tires wouldn't have succumbed to.
During the Paris-Roubaix and the TdF coverage OLN aired an interview with Discovery's (and previously Postal's) head (?) mechanic. They asked him why the team gets so few flats compared to others. He took them down into the basement of house in Belgium (?) and showed stacks of hundreds of tubulars aging "like wine". Each stack was marked with the year of manufacture and he pointed to stacks saying, "These are for this year's Tour, these are for next year's Tour", etc. I believe he said that it takes 4-5 years for a tubular to toughen up sufficiently.
Certainly rubber that is too old can be a problem, but newer rubber will not necessarily be more puncture-resistant than older.
During the Paris-Roubaix and the TdF coverage OLN aired an interview with Discovery's (and previously Postal's) head (?) mechanic. They asked him why the team gets so few flats compared to others. He took them down into the basement of house in Belgium (?) and showed stacks of hundreds of tubulars aging "like wine". Each stack was marked with the year of manufacture and he pointed to stacks saying, "These are for this year's Tour, these are for next year's Tour", etc. I believe he said that it takes 4-5 years for a tubular to toughen up sufficiently.
Certainly rubber that is too old can be a problem, but newer rubber will not necessarily be more puncture-resistant than older.
Yeah that was quite a story. I remember hearing and falling for the myths about aging tubulars. Julian's storing those tires in his wine cellar (no lights, motors, UV, or ozone) prevented them from rotting out but did not make them better than new tires. That is if he really believed it and it wasn't staged for the show... could be they were all new tires.
Same here with me. I've not had a flat in at least 3000 miles using those "forte" tires I mentioned earlier. Heck I didn't have one flat this entire summer and I ride at least 60 miles everyday.
I have had 5,500 km without a puncture on Continental Competition tubulars. The tread has worn down before a puncture.
s_bishop said:
I started out a road rider, had a crash, converted to mountain and am just now coming back to my roots. I missed the speed and open road.
I picked up an old Cannondale 3.0 with funky campy rims that use tubular tires. I have been out riding 5 times and have had 4 flats. Of course, it could just be the law of averages but does anyone else have this problem?
When I rode 10 year ago, I had very few flats and was using 'old' clincher style rims.
It has been 2 small rocks (sharp shale), a staple, and a random peice of metal. I am debating the purchase of some clincher rims and tires. I ride on primary roads here in Vancouver Canada.
As anyone can see, where you live makes a big difference on how often you puncture. That said, some folks just are prone to flats. I have had one flat in 1500 miles of riding, which, for the trail I ride on a very good record.
Tubulars suck for training unless you are lucky enough to live where there is hardly any road debris, thorns, etc. I would buy a set of clincher wheels and save the tubies for racing. You will still get the same number of flats but you will be able to easily repair or replace the tube.
Wait a minute. Doesn't tubular tires cost $50-$60 for one flat? If that is true, whoever perfers tubulars must be working for Mr. Gates. I'll never switch from my armadillos. Oh yeah, I'm a deadbeat with no job...so what I said may not be good advice.
