Flat tires!

Jacob, maybe try adding a piece of rubber around your rim and sticking out a bit like a gheto tubeless liner. It might “soften” your rim edge helping with the pinch flats.

I have never tried this (never really had pinch flat problems) and have never heard of or seen it done but it might work. If you try it let us know.

I dont really know what you mean by a piece a rubber like the ghetto tubeless. I have an old tube wraped around my tube(without glue) so I have an extra piece of rubber protecting my tube from pinch flats, but it doesn’t seems to work well. I’ve been riding with the extra piece of rubber for like a week before I got my flat.

So I’m pretty confused here… I just need some clarification. Are you guys saying that your tires/tubes are popping while your riding, up to 10 times in a session!? I’ve never gotten a flat tire, and while I’m not exactly hardcore yet, I do do some pretty big hopping, and my CC tire is old and pretty much dead. I have felt the rim hit the inside of my tire before, but I don’t think that’s what you guys are talking about…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGtAkpy57mo

thats a pinchflat rancid :slight_smile: They’re annoying.
Jakob, have you tried the chalk/talcum powdering your tube thing?

I didn’t get 10 flats in one session, it’s in the whole season. I got 2 in a session last year though… Anyway, all my flats are either on big gaps or drops, but sometimes I get a flat, and I can ride it for a few revs until I start hopping and start hearing it.

@ Alister: what is this powder thing for the tube? I’ve never heard about that before now.

This should be obvious, but many people forget while patching a tire:

Make sure that there are no thorns still in the tire. It will do no good to patch a tube to have it popped again by a lingering thorn.

Get some powdered chalk or talcum powder and rub it around your tube LOTS :slight_smile: It helps the rim to slide over the tube, rather than go through it! :stuck_out_tongue:

i used to use it alot!

Try rotating the cranks instead of the tire

Because of the valve stem needing to stay put, rotating your tire helps the tire, but not the tube.

Trials riders hop on the same part of the tube and rim a lot. So maybe moving the cranks more often rather than rotate the tire could work better for a trials uni that was getting lots of pinch flats.

Or perhaps get an old Harley inner tube ( free from the bin behind any cycle shop) Perhaps try a double wrap with a strip of inner tube, on the part that takes the beatings.

Did you change something that may be causing the flats?

What do the holes look like and where are they located (rim side, tread side, sidewall, or valve stem).

I would avoid going tubeless if you are getting big air since the tire will likely unseat and burp. Tubeless is great if you don’t have to worry about snakebites and you get a lot of flats from thorns.

Tubeless is a mess to clean up, did a tire clean last night, takes about thirty minutes to get a tire free of all that latex crap, used citrus cleaner and elbow grease.

Tubes work fine, easy to replace, no mess, cheap, last a long time.

I run a Nokian 26" DH tube on my 29er, has stopped all of the snakebite flats even when running 18# psi on an RR 2.4 :astonished:

If you think the tube is not moving independent of the tire, so it sticks to the tire and as a result it is getting flatted, try dusting the inside of the tire with talcum powder.

there’s a brand called mr. tuffy that i used for a while on my bike. It just goes in between the tire and tube. makes your ride stiffer, though.