Dumb question - repeated flats

My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past month...
and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I replaced the first
flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in storage. Checked it today,
and it was flat as a pancake. Other tire is fine. What am I not looking
at? There does not appear to be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie

"Jamie" wrote in
:

My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month... and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I replaced
the first flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in storage.
Checked it today, and it was flat as a pancake. Other tire is fine.
What am I not looking at? There does not appear to be damage to the
tire?

Thanks,

jamie

I'm not sure how new you are to the sport or how much experience you have
changing tires, so don't take this the wrong way if you all ready know.
When you have a flat do the following:

1) Check the tire for cuts and embedded glass, nails, etc.
2) Check the rim making sure that the tape is still covering all of the
spoke holes.
3) Put a little air in the new tube befoe you put it on the rim.
4) Make sure that you don't "pinch" the tube.
This happens when there isn't enough air in the tube when you mount the
tire and it gets folded over on itself.
4) Make sure the bead of the tire is seated properly before you blow it up.

Hope this helps.

- Boyd S.

"Boyd Speerschneider" wrote in message
...
"Jamie" wrote in
:

My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month... What am I not looking at? There does not appear to be damage
to the
tire?


I'm not sure how new you are to the sport or how much experience you have
changing tires, so don't take this the wrong way if you all ready know.
When you have a flat do the following:

1) .... snip good advice

Mark a spot on the tire that you will remember, e.g. put nail polish on the
drive side, next to the valve. (You can use the tire markings themselves
for this, but that would require you to remove the tire AGAIN. Enough of
that.) This will mean that you will be able to exactly match the hole in
the tube to the area of the tire. Examine this area of the tire (and wheel)
in excruciating detail until the answer becomes clear.

Of course, it's also possible that you have just had a run of bad luck. I'm
a statistician, so I tried assuming that flats were purely random, but
happened, on average, every 500 miles. I then simulated a few tires this
way. There were a number of cases in which my "random" flats occurred very
close together; your two flats may not be connected at all.

"Jamie" wrote in message
...
My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month...
and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I replaced the first
flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in storage. Checked it
today,
and it was flat as a pancake. Other tire is fine. What am I not looking
at? There does not appear to be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie


That has happened to me a few times. Apparently, I was having what is
described as a blowout. Since my bike is stored in my apartment, I heard
the sudden loud sound when my tubes blew. I had to start trying to be a
little bit more careful about keeping the tubes inside the casing. I can't
tell what type of flat you're having, but here's a couple of websites that
might help.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tires.html

and

http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/
This is a FAQ. Check out sections 8b.3, 8b.4 and 8b.5. As someone else
said, these could be completely random events, but if its something else,
those pages might help you figure it out.

Last time I had a recurring flat problem, changing the rim tape took care of
it.


"Jamie" wrote in message
...
My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month...
and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I replaced the first
flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in storage. Checked it
today,
and it was flat as a pancake. Other tire is fine. What am I not looking
at? There does not appear to be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie

"Jamie" wrote in
:

My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month... and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I
replaced the first flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in
storage. Checked it today, and it was flat as a pancake. Other
tire is fine. What am I not looking at? There does not appear to
be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie




Last time I had a recurring flat, I found that I had a very tiny piece
of glass stuck inside the rubber tire. I searched the inside and
outside of the tire repeatedly, and never found that glass! Finally, I
decided to replace the tire, rather than keep patching the tube.

After putting a new tire on, I scoured every little crack and hole of
the old tire, and finally found the scoundrel! Just a tiny little
sliver, that was inside the rubber of the tire. Never felt it by hand,
but, when the tube was pumped to pressure, and I rode on it, that must
have been enough for the glass to poke into the tube, causing the
pinhole, and the flat.

--
Smile!!

__O
_-\ ,_ Eric Babula
(_) / (_) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

MMMM, I had a tire that kept going flat, changed it to the front wheel to
see if it was the tire or the wheel, it still kept going flat. Examined
inside of the tire couldn't find anything. Took a cotton cleansing pad, kind
of like a flat cotton ball, and rubbed it over the inside of the tire, sure
enough a small snag from the casing of the tire. Too little to see but the
cotton snagged it, just enough to puncture a high pressure tire after fifty
miles of riding or so. Was making me nuts for awhile.
All the best,
Biff
"Eric Babula" wrote in message
. ..
"Jamie" wrote in
:

My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month... and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I
replaced the first flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in
storage. Checked it today, and it was flat as a pancake. Other
tire is fine. What am I not looking at? There does not appear to
be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie




Last time I had a recurring flat, I found that I had a very tiny piece
of glass stuck inside the rubber tire. I searched the inside and
outside of the tire repeatedly, and never found that glass! Finally, I
decided to replace the tire, rather than keep patching the tube.

After putting a new tire on, I scoured every little crack and hole of
the old tire, and finally found the scoundrel! Just a tiny little
sliver, that was inside the rubber of the tire. Never felt it by hand,
but, when the tube was pumped to pressure, and I rode on it, that must
have been enough for the glass to poke into the tube, causing the
pinhole, and the flat.

--
Smile!!

__O
_-\ ,_ Eric Babula
(_) / (_) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

"Jamie" wrote in message
...
My Specialized allez sport '03 model has gotten 2 flats in the past
month...
and only ridden twice in that time, due to travel. I replaced the first
flat, road the bike 30 or so miles and put it in storage. Checked it
today,
and it was flat as a pancake. Other tire is fine. What am I not looking
at? There does not appear to be damage to the tire?

Thanks,

jamie



How long was it in storage. I occasionally have good tubes that will go
completely flat in a week. If the storage isn't heated they can go flat
really quick with allot of temperature change.
Rod Raisanen
Chillicothe, Ohio
The reply take out garbage

Smith at wrote:
MMMM, I had a tire that kept going flat, changed it to the front wheel to
see if it was the tire or the wheel, it still kept going flat. Examined
inside of the tire couldn't find anything. Took a cotton cleansing pad, kind
of like a flat cotton ball, and rubbed it over the inside of the tire, sure
enough a small snag from the casing of the tire. Too little to see but the
cotton snagged it, just enough to puncture a high pressure tire after fifty
miles of riding or so. Was making me nuts for awhile.

I add a cotton ball and a small square of emery cloth ( similar to
sandpaper) to all my patch kits and to the patch kits I give as gifts or
prizes.

In article , Jay wrote:
Smith at wrote:
MMMM, I had a tire that kept going flat, changed it to the front wheel to
see if it was the tire or the wheel, it still kept going flat. Examined
inside of the tire couldn't find anything. Took a cotton cleansing pad, kind
of like a flat cotton ball, and rubbed it over the inside of the tire, sure
enough a small snag from the casing of the tire. Too little to see but the
cotton snagged it, just enough to puncture a high pressure tire after fifty
miles of riding or so. Was making me nuts for awhile.

I add a cotton ball and a small square of emery cloth ( similar to
sandpaper) to all my patch kits and to the patch kits I give as gifts or
prizes.


I also put a metal schrader valve cover w/ built-in valve core remover.
This is a just-in-case gizmo with which to disable cars via flattening one
or more tires should the need ever arise (drunk driver, hit and run, etc.).

I did, however, get my first ever death threat for suggesting this idea once
before, so it must be a controversial idea somehow.

Pureheart