CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

Puncture fairies....

(93 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by Baldcyclist
  • Latest reply from DaveC

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  1. skotl
    Member

    @Baldcyclist - was it you that I came across, 400m into the NEPN yesterday? I asked whether you had everything you needed and you said "yes, but I can't find what caused the puncture"...?

    I have gatorskins too. Have had for three years now.
    The difference is that for the first 18 months of that, I was coming up from Leith to the West End and the last 18 months is Dalmeny to the West End.

    Coming up from Leith, I would get a puncture a month but I haven't had a flat (touch wood) in the 18 months I've been coming in from Dalmeny.

    Can I ask whether you do a "glass-pick"? Each weekend, I up-end the bike and check the circumference of the wheel, and I normally remove a couple of embedded bits of glass (or metal!) that is stuck in the rubber but hasn't yet made it through the kevlar weave. It was a guy at work that told me that if you don't do a regular glass-pick then the glass just wiggles it's way through the kevlar until it can stab the inner tube.

    As an aside, there was a broken green glass bottle just as we join the NEPN all week, but it seems to have been cleared up on Thursday night. Maybe related?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Aye that was me SkotI.

    Don't know how I managed to miss the 3/4 inch slit on the side of my tyre inspecting at the time! It was gaping at me when I changed the tyres over this morning.

    I do the tyres every week (two weeks at least), pick gravel/glass etc out, pump up to 110psi, when I do my other weekly checks/maintenance/oiling etc (although I couldn't be bothered redoing handlebar tape this week, will probably annoy me tomorrow!).

    One of the things I hate most about cycling, my hour/two a week of being a mechanic every Sunday.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Oh, I did put on Marathon+'s this morning. First one went on no problem, thought, pft, what's all the fuss about.
    Second one, hmm, fun shall we say. My top top based on a sample of one. When the tyre keeps popping off the rim, simply turn the wheel round and put the other side in first, seemed to work fine for me after cursing the other side for 10 mins.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. skotl
    Member

    I don't mind the weekly maintenance as long as the weather is good. I suspect that my upending of the bike will draw longer than every week once it gets cold and wet. Unfortunately, my old eyes can only spot the glass in sunlight so I need to do it outdoors!

    The Marathon Plus's look interesting - I suspect my gators are almost at the end of their useful life so keen to know how you get on with them as I'd planned on simply getting more gators.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. skotl
    Member

    Jeepers - there's a five minute youtube vid on fitting the marathon pluses! Looks like there's definitely a knack to it.

    Review and fitting vid

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Instography
    Member

    Weekly maintenance?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. gembo
    Member

    @skoti, that better not be a link to that guy changing a marathon plus. He has been on this forum changing that tyre with incredible regularity :-)

    Earlier there was chat about taking glass out of tyres. I did that once with my marathons, the glass doesn't get through to the Kevlar as there Is 5mm more rubber on the tyre. Tha glass came out as tiny spherical pebbles

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. skotl
    Member

    @gembo, err, aye - it may be a beardy chap showing how to do it. I still haven't had a chance to read all the previous posts :D

    Defo have to pick the glass out of the gators, and it is a pain in the butt. Would be work getting the marathons to not have to do that.
    I was just checking, though, and it seems the smallest widths are 25 - I guess that's cos they're "heavy duty", right?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. gembo
    Member

    Skoti, 25 marathon plus would be hard, even for guy with beard. I roll with 28s for commute.

    I do have skinnier tyres, three of which are gatorskins

    Posted 11 years ago #

  10. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Puncture rate is still one a month. sigh.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  11. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Not much fun this morning. Puncture was due to a thorn going through the tyre in between the bits of tread. Worst of it was, I couldn't get the thorn out because of how it had lodged it's self. Couldn't pull it through, and also couldn't push it back.

    After 35 minutes of trying to pull it out with tweezers, and it becoming smaller and smaller, and smaller. I managed to get the sharp bit out of the inside bit, but there is still a lump, and at the outside the thorn is now too small to grab a hold of.

    So I'm not particularly happy in the knowledge that:
    1. I have no spare CO2 canister now.
    2. I'm on the last of my spare tubes.
    3. The remaining bit of thorn will eventually penetrate the tyre again.
    4. I have a 14.5 mile journey to get home knowing all of the above, might be a long walk.

    meh.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  12. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Baldcyclist,

    annoyingly bad luck there - if you can be bothered it might be worth deflating the tyre (assume you have pump still?) and putting something between where the thorn is and the inner tube. A patch off an innertube repair kit would be perfect. Failing that, bits of plastic work well too. Would stop the thorn pushing in further until you can get home and sort it all out properly.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  13. skotl
    Member

    Nae luck, @BC, my sympathies.

    Do you think you picked it up on the A90 path? I've had one there and seen another handful of people with punctures +/- a couple of miles of the trees.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  14. Baldcyclist
    Member

    All that is left of the thorn stuck in my tyre. Seems to be no way to get it out, can't pick it out from the outside, or push it through from the inside. Seems to me that this 3 week old tyre is essentially just another puncture in the waiting, and that the only way to fix it is essentially to buy a new tyre. Have tweeted Schwalbe my displeasure.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  15. weiss
    Member

    Have you tried folding the tyre inside out and then trying to push the thorn out? That might offer you slightly more access to the thorn to at least be able to break off more of the sharp bit, if you still can't shove it out.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  16. Charterhall
    Member

    Have you tried using tweezers ?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  17. Charterhall
    Member

    I fitted a pair of new Marathons to my work bike yesterday so I am practically guaranteed a puncture tomorrow.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  18. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Tried tweezers, tried a needle, tried pushing it from the inside, tried pulling it from the outside. This thorn has taken over two hours of my life, it will take no more (today). Tyre is back on the bike. At least the sharp bit has broken off, and the lump on the inside of the tyre is now flat.

    Hopefully what is left in the tyre is far enough in not to be any more of a bother, fed up. As you can probably imagine I'm not feeling the love for Marathon +. Once winter is over they will be gone, forever!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  19. gembo
    Member

    I have had one puncture ever with marathon plus and it was a hawthorn. Kevlar is bulletproof but not Thornproof. The tyre in the picture doesn't look like a marathon plus? But I have never pressed a tyre like that in close up.

    Nae luck

    Posted 11 years ago #

  20. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Yep, definitely a 3 week old Marathon plus, here it is with the 'full' thorn...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  21. gembo
    Member

    Yes that looks more like it. Brand new. Very unfortunate.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  22. Charterhall
    Member

    Never had that problem with normal marathons, I wonder if its the M+ reinforcing that's perhaps grippier and preventing easy extraction of thorn ?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  23. Boab08
    Member

    Having picked up punctures on the innocent railway path, I've studied this thread and others on the net. Quite fancy giving the Specialized All Condition Armadillo tyres a go.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  24. threefromleith
    Member

    Saw someone pushing his bike down the WoL path near Boswall Place on Tuesday around 4.30pm'ish, with a flat front. Stopped to ask if he needed any help, but he was off to his pal's nearby bike shop to get it fixed and said he was OK.

    Anyone on here?

    (I had my first flat on my Schwalbe Durano Plus tyres, fitted in August. Looked like part of a thick staple - it'd gone in on the WoL path on the way home last Thursday and slowly & silently let the air out during the evening at home).

    Posted 11 years ago #

  25. wingpig
    Member

    @Boab08 What width were you thinking of? Armadilloes are great at 25mm and thicker but I switched to Gatorskin Hardshell for 23mm as my Armadilloes started disintegrating, with the central tread separating from the carcass.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  26. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    ime the Innocent path is okay but the continuation through Jewel Park towards Asda will puncture anything.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  27. PS
    Member

    I winterised my road bike a couple of evenings ago.

    I was contemplating leaving the Continental GP4000s on as an experiment but found that I had a slow puncture from the last time I used it (10 days previous). A thorn. So it was one with the Gator Hardshells (25s) for the next 4 or 5 months...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  28. Boab08
    Member

    @cyclingmobile The Magdalene section isnt bad at all. The worst section is just before you cross the road on to the innocent. Always broken glass at the fence.

    Went for Marathon Plusses in the end, £25 each on Wiggle.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  29. Snowy
    Member

    Commuting this morn; front flat on Mountain King 2.2 knoblies on the 11th day of using the mtb. After 8 months of puncture-free commuting on the 23c gatorskins.

    What a time to discover there's a spare tube and pump in the pannier, but no tyre lever. Bah. #fail

    Posted 11 years ago #

  30. CycleCommute.CC
    Member

    Puntured on the A89 just out of Broxburn this morning, why is it always on the coldest days?

    2 cyclists passed and neither of them even slowed down to check I had everything :(

    Didn't need any help but it would have been nice to be asked.

    Posted 11 years ago #

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