Puncture Prevention?

[flecc]

Slime and it's derivatives go in before to prevent leakage as punctures occur. There's also sealant aerosol solutions which are used after a puncture, and these are intended to seal and inflate at the same time. The latter were designed for tubeless car tyres and have limited success with tubes.

Frankly none of either has ever worked for me, and this has been the majority view of those posting in the forum. The trouble is that when Slime doesn't work, as often happens, it makes a sticky mess which prevents the puncture being repaired with a patch on the spot.

The best and most reliable solution is to do a practice puncture repair if necessary on a rear wheel, right through to putting a patch on the non-existent puncture, and then have the confidence to repair them as they occur. The other sensible strategy is to use puncture resistant tyres.

An alternative approach with punctures for anyone with basic skills is to swap the tube on the road, as it's a quick and clean solution. The punctured tube can then be repaired at home.
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[Larkspur]

Originally Posted by flecc

Slime and it's derivatives go in before to prevent leakage as punctures occur. There's also sealant aerosol solutions which are used after a puncture, and these are intended to seal and inflate at the same time. The latter were designed for tubeless car tyres and have limited success with tubes.

Frankly none of either has ever worked for me, and this has been the majority view of those posting in the forum. The trouble is that when Slime doesn't work, as often happens, it makes a sticky mess which prevents the puncture being repaired with a patch on the spot.

The best and most reliable solution is to do a practice puncture repair if necessary on a rear wheel, right through to putting a patch on the non-existent puncture, and then have the confidence to repair them as they occur. The other sensible strategy is to use puncture resistant tyres.

An alternative approach with punctures for anyone with basic skills is to swap the tube on the road, as it's a quick and clean solution. The punctured tube can then be repaired at home.
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Thanks for the info Flecc - I think that I will now return the unused slime that I have purchased from Wiggle, when it arrives and buy a spare inner-tube, some tyre levers and basic tools. Changing the tube sounds like an attractive option to me.

Chris

Chris

[BrizzleBoy]

...not forgetting to get the offending sharp object out of the tyre before reinflating

[flecc]

Originally Posted by BrizzleBoy

...not forgetting to get the offending sharp object out of the tyre before reinflating

Spoilsport!
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[Rod Tibbs]

Today I got a puncture in the rear wheel of my Synergie Mistral - I have only had it just over a week! So I bought a puncture repair kit from Halfords, remembering that when I was a boy - about 60 years ago - they always came with a yellow crayon inside intended for marking the position of the hole on the inner tube.

The crayon was always useless.

I was amazed to find they STILL DO IT! And it remains just as useless as ever. The first time I touched it the thing broke and of course it never makes anything like a mark on an inner tube.

I find that a modern write-on-anything marker, preferably in white or yellow, works perfectly. When are the makers of these repair kits going to chuck the useless yellow crayons away and get up todate?

Rod

[flecc]

Originally Posted by Rod Tibbs

Today I got a puncture in the rear wheel of my Synergie Mistral - I have only had it just over a week! So I bought a puncture repair kit from Halfords, remembering that when I was a boy - about 60 years ago - they always came with a yellow crayon inside intended for marking the position of the hole on the inner tube.

The crayon was always useless.

I was amazed to find they STILL DO IT! And it remains just as useless as ever. The first time I touched it the thing broke and of course it never makes anything like a mark on an inner tube.

I find that a modern write-on-anything marker, preferably in white or yellow, works perfectly. When are the makers of these repair kits going to chuck the useless yellow crayons away and get up todate?

Rod

That's right Rod. . The other bit of silliness is the block of french chalk with a grater ridging under the plastic box of most puncture outfits now. The plastic moulded grater ridges are too rounded to do anything, the chalk block just skidding over them. Obviously the producers never try these things out.
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[Rod Tibbs]

I think I will make a bid for freedom and write to Halfords management and ask them to start thinking about puncture repair outfits. These things used to be made by John Bull but whoever produces them now still does exactly the same stupid things. I don't think I have ever used the block of French chalk.

Presumably Halford's management doesn't repair its own bike tyres or even know what a bike is.

Bestest

Rod

[RedSkywalker]

Hi Everybody - first post so be kind

I bought my first electric bike couple of weeks ago and although I'm finding it great fun to comute to work on it [only a couple of miles] it's 40 odd years since I was last on a bike and I really dread the idea of punctures - can I ask are solid tyres a realistic alternative?

[flecc]

Hi RedSkywalker, welcome to the forum.

Solid tyres are not really an option I'm afraid. There have been such things, but they are terrible to ride with high rolling resistance and less safe.

There are efficient tyres which are almost puncture proof and I've used one brand across three bikes and nearly five years with only a single puncture, and that one was off road over blackthorn cuttings. The tyres are Schwalbe Marathon Plus and they have a thick penetration resistant layer under the tread as you see here:



They are expensive at a recommended price of about £26.99 each, but some places discount them. The cheapest is usually this company, the web page having three different sizes at £19.99:

All Terrain Cycles
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[essexman]

Originally Posted by musicbooks

I huffed and I puffed and as I pumped away

Musicbooks, do you have a debilitating lung condition or are you still using 20th century pumps? Teasing aside you want to get a cycleair . I've had one for a couple of years now. I still occasionally use my track pump but to be honest its more work to get it out of the shed.

PS All.... re slime. I've used it before it has about a 1/3 succcess rate on preventing punctures for me. At the same time it ruins the valves of 1/3 inner tubes but on balance i;d rather have a valve slowly ruined than have 50% more punctures. A point of note slime is incompatible with some patch brands (the slime dissolves the glue).