Tires: products and techniques to avoid & fix flats

Every week or two, I look over my tire surfaces for embedded debris and remove it, if there are significant cuts I will fill them with dabs of glue -- "Barge Cement" and "Shoe Goo" both work well.

Correct tire inflation is also important, see Sheldon Brown for rough idea of correct inflation starting point. On 25MM or smaller tires I would never ride at under 90 psi. I will sometimes slightly lower inflation pressures for wet conditions or if I know I will be riding on irregular surfaces, but inflating on the low side risks pinch-flats and more importantly rim damage. Replacing rims is both costly and time-consuming so I prefer to err on the side of higher pressures.

Tires and other products to avoid punctures

For a training tire, Bontrager has been making a 'Hard Case' clincher for a long time, I used to ride on them and don't remember ever flatting one. They're not cheap, you can get a Conti GP4000 for $56 at the LBS while the race x lite version of the hardcase (kevlar bead/folding) goes at $50 or the slightly heavier wire-bead version for $40.

The Conti probably will not last as long -- it's a full up competitive race tire, I don't think their vectran breaker costs anything in handling but most riders won't get more than 2000 miles before the tire wears out .. well I don't, which was also my experience with Vittoria EVO.

There are two places where the Hardcase doesn't measure up, the kevlar and wire-beaded versions weigh in at 260 / 330 grams respectively. That compares to 200-220 grams for most makers race tires, including Contis with the Vectran.

The second major difference is the Bontrager tire's handling isn't even vaguely up to snuff but I think that's more because of the compound, which is much harder and less sticky. I wouldn't trust them for hard cornering. On the upside, they reportedly will go 4-5000 miles or more. That's attractive but I'm too addicted to the handling performance of Conti/vittoria rubber.

For the last 3 years I rode principally on Vittoria EVO tires and wasn't very impressed with their ability to withstand flats, I typically have gotten one glass / debris induced flat every 2-400 miles of riding. This said, I'm a good / difficult test case, weighing in at 220, I'm loading my rear wheel with more weight than most riders split across both wheels, ergo: I am driving glass splinters into the tire with more force than most riders will.

When I was still riding on Vittoria tires I did come up with some mediating tools for the high flat-rate. The best has been a liner called 'spinskins' by a local company, Warwick Mills. I rode these for a total of 3000 miles on the Peugeot, under the Vittoria EVO clinchers without a single puncture. Pretty darn good and I've had at least two deep cuts in the tires that would have surely gone through to the tube without the liners; based on prior experience there were undoubtedly more small punctures that also would have caused flats. Unfortunately these liners, while very light, come with a couple of downsides: 1. They're a PITA to install, do-able but not exactly fun. 2. They have to be maintained at a very high inflation pressure or the liner will cut the tube, they've gotten a bad rap for this, perhaps deservedly, tho most cyclists ride at too-low tire pressure.

[EDIT] I've just retired my last Vittoria clincher, protected by Spinskins. The tire had about 2k miles on it and on inspection there were no fewer than 6 holes through tread and belt that would have resulted in flats.

My current record for Spinskins is 4000+ tire-miles, 0 flats. For a light rolling weight flat breaker/protection these are far and a way the best thing I've seen. This said, they have the maintenance penalty noted above but it's at least a penalty that can be paid one time at tire-mounting, rather than on the road, holding up the group while I change out a punctured tube.

So, going forward, my fixied/SS will be shod with cheaper rubber rather than the $50 - a - pop Conti GP4000 and I'll be using the spinskins under those cheap tires for flat prevention. I'll keep using the Contis on the venerable Peugeot, I like their handling! If anyone needs help with setting up Spinskins, give me a shout, it's not too difficult after the first go, and remember if you do use them you MUST keep the tires inflated at / near max.

Net-Net, I had a good experience with the Spinskins but I'm far happier with the Conti offerings. I've looked at other liner products "Slime" and others, and felt they were too heavy to consider.

In a race, The best tool I can recommend for dealing with a flat is Vittoria's Pit-Stop inflator product. While it's intended for use with tubular tires, there's no reason not to appy it to clinchers as well. I like to carry a can for races and any ride longer than 40 miles.

Pit-Stop will fill a tire, fixing most punctures as well as inflating your tire to 100 PSI(it won't bridge a tear of 1/8" length or more but that sort of tear requires you go in and re-enforce the tire body with a folded dollar anyhow) . At a cost of $10 per canister I consider this pricey but I've also been able to get 2 repairs per canister (with an hand-pump or CO2 to bring pressure up to spec). Even allowing for using my cheap-ass 1/2 can + pump, this is going to knock 2 minutes off the repair time for the fastest mechanic and more like 5-10 minutes for the rest of us mortals. The canister weighs less than a clincher-tube, it's only downside in my mind is that it's too large to fit into an under-seat tool bag.

So far I've fixed 6 flats with this at 100% success rate and only had one long-tear flat that it wouldn't fix (didn't try). I still carry spare tube /' tire as appropriate, and will usually opt for swapping tubes 'cause it's cheaper, but there are days when schedule or race-time take priority.