Thursday, April 21, 2016

Flatless or Flat Less?

I had a total of three flats on my Wolverine's Schwalbe Supreme tires in the first 1,000 miles.  Changing tires and patching tubes is just part of bicycle life and every 300-350 miles is quite tolerable.  I was happy and really liked the tires.

Without scientific evidence to support this claim, it appears goathead thorns become much more prevalent in the late summer/fall here ... to the tune of about 15 flats in the next 800 miles (all thorn caused!). I started getting punctures in my patches, literally, and all these flats started sucking the fun out of riding.  

The next 1800 miles yielded exactly zero flats, because I switched to Schwalbe's Marathon Plus line.  The ride difference was negligible, at least by the way I ride, and zero beats the crap out of eighteen, but there's a down side.  The Marathons have a wire bead and are a pain in the sphincter to mount.  I pinched three tubes with the tire levers before getting them on.  But, hey, they're "flatless" according to Schwalbe's website, so I'd never have to do it again!  Who believes that?  

Two weeks ago, I hit a sizable piece of crushed rock that flattened my flatless rear tire, and changing it was as frustrating as it was the first time.  At least they go flat ... less.  Two days ago, I get a second flat, though oddly the tube wasn't punctured ... maybe someone let the air out, who knows.  Of course I didn't realize this until after removing the tire from the rim.  At this point, I considered switching back to the Supremes, for fear I wouldn't be able to remount a tire out on the road.  Then I found this video:


I feel like I'm the last one to learn these tips, but the video helped me get the tire mounted without levers ... as in hands only.  Thanks random guy in red shirt with cool accent.  Perhaps posting this passes on the secret to someone else as clueless as me.