fooferdoggie
Well-Known Member
when the tire gets pinched between a hole or curb or such and the rim and cuts the tube. you get a snakebike on the tube.
Bike tires? Puncture proof? Skid proof?
- Thread starter Wes Turner
- Start date
Wes Turner
Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Silicon Valley, CA
Thanks. And how does that occur? I only ride residential streets and am pretty careful to avoid debris and holes in the road. Does it mostly only happen at fairly high speeds?
Djangodog
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Claremont, NH
It tends to happen when a high amount of pressure is applies to a small area causing the tire to compress against the rim, pinching the inner tube, and like fooferdogie said, causing what looks like a snake bite on the inner tube. Skinny tires running a too low a pressure are a common cause, but it can happen to any tire with a tube. Sharp edges like a curb or a sharp stone can cause a pinch flat. Even a speed bump can cause one if the tire is a bit soft. I haven’t had one in many years.
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fooferdoggie
Well-Known Member
off road or unexpected pot holes or curbs. speed would make it worse for sure.
DiggyGun
Well-Known Member
- Region
- United Kingdom
- City
- Buckinghamshire
This may help explain it.
PINCH FLATS (UNDERINFLATED)
Also known as “snake bites” because they show up as two tiny little punctures, side by side on your tube, pinch flats are the result of your tube being pinched between the road and your rim while you’re riding.
Pinch flats are usually the result of an underinflated tire, because there’s not enough pressure to keep your rim off the road when going over bumps. The typical pinch flat usually goes something like:
7:00am: “Hmm, my tire’s a little low. I’ll pump it back up when I get to work”.
7:15am: “Here come those speed bumps. Just another ordinary commute”.
Bump-GRANK (<-- that’s the sound of your metal rim hitting the pavement)…
Hissssssssssss (<-- and that’s the sound of the air sneaking out of those two fresh holes in your tube.)
Just make sure you’re all aired up properly before you roll out, don’t go hopping huge curbs or anything on thin tires, and you should have no trouble riding pinch-flat-free.
DG…
Wes Turner
Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Silicon Valley, CA
Very helpful, thanks
m@Robertson
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
If so, they've changed the story. Its 3000 miles period now. At least thats all I saw and the 3000 was right out in the open.
steve mercier
Well-Known Member
Also known as a "snake bite" haha
steve mercier
Well-Known Member
"Snakebite Flats, AKA Pinch Flats and How to Prevent Them" is a post worth reading on this site https://forums.electricbikereview.c...ka-pinch-flats-and-how-to-prevent-them.22656/
indianajo
Well-Known Member
I carry a spare tire, a flat fold panaracer. Pushing my bike 30 miles back home is not a scenario to make light of. I ripped a sidewall in 2019 with 40 lb groceries on the bike at 96 F. Was a good looking ****ese tire from a bike I bought at charity resale shop to salvage the cranks off of. Fortunately I was only 6 miles from summer camp where I kept a spare. I had real round kendas stored out there. Roll up tires I tried to carry were garbage when made by Schwinn. Rollup tire popped right off the rim & blew the tube back in 2014.
Pushing my bike to the bike shop with a flat would be really poor planning. It is 5 miles in the opposite direction from my summer camp & the grocery store. The bike won't fit on a bus rack, and riding the bus takes 2 transfers each way of ~30 minutes each. I can walk faster than the bus if there is a transfer. I buy tires a year in advance of needing them, keep some at both city house and summer camp trailer.
Spare tire & tube comes in handy also when a wannabe thief stabs my tire after he cannot steal the bike. That happened 2022 at a convenience store 2 miles from my house. Happened 2019 at the fence in front of a church in a neighborhood with apartments. No spare tire, $3 in wallet, had to push bike 8 miles home.
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Djangodog
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Claremont, NH
This is how to wear your tires.
steve mercier
Well-Known Member
Wow they smoked a pack of Gitanes a day in the Tour De France huh? Nine out of ten doctors recommend unfiltered ...
riplipper
Member
- Region
- USA
Does anyone carry this stuff with them? Probably not a guaranteed fix but might work on most small punctures??
Slime Tube Sealant Great for Bicycles, Dirt Bikes, Wheelbarrows and Riding Mowers 8oz - 10003 - Walmart.com
Today Buy Slime Tube Sealant Great for Bicycles, Dirt Bikes, Wheelbarrows and Riding Mowers 8oz - 10003 at Walmart.com
www.walmart.com
mrgold35
Well-Known Member
I've been using Stans Tire Sealant since 2016 with my fat tire ebikes with inner tubs. I proactively put two 2oz bottles in each fat tire (4 total) to help with goat heat stickers and cactus spikes. I don't notice or feel the extra sealant inside the tire as I ride (or I'm use to it). I keep a bottle in my rack bag. I sometimes run low inside the tires and have to add more because of Stans working patching holes as I go over months of riding.
riplipper
Member
- Region
- USA
Thanks, I guess I see the preventive aspects, but wondering if anyone carries slime for after the fact. I think it also inflates tires too?
I can see the need for carrying plyers to remove something, and then inflating with the slime/fix-a-flat?
Never used it before so have no idea how it works.
Mr. Coffee
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- A Demented Corner of the North Cascades
Tire and tube sealant by itself won't inflate a tire. You can easily tell because any product that will inflate a tire will have an attachment for a valve, and those bottles of sealant do not.
The best place to carry sealant is inside your tube, or inside your tire if you run tubeless.
riplipper
Member
- Region
- USA
Mr. Coffee
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- A Demented Corner of the North Cascades
One big downside of stuff like Fix-A-Flat is that with a bicycle tire, you might well never be able to inflate your tire with a normal pump after using it: the sealant can do a pretty good job of clogging the valve core. If your tubes have removable valve cores (not all do) you might be able to pull the valve cores, clean them, and be able to reinflate your tire. But no guarantees.
But this problem has been solved for cyclists. Pretty well, actually.
You can buy inner tubes with sealant already in them:
And you can buy a decent portable pump:
And you are in exactly the same place. If you don't want to pump up your tires you can take CO2 cartridges or an electric pump, both of which have advantages and disadvantages that have been extensively discussed on this forum.
Keep in mind that most of those shenanigans mostly serve to just get you back riding quicker. You'll still need to know how to fix a flat tire on your bike, preferably in ugly field conditions (like along a busy highway shoulder in hosing rain). So you'll need to know how to remove and replace your wheel (and the tools to do that), be able to remove and reinstall the tire, and replace or patch the inner tube. None of the above is particularly difficult to master (lots of ten-year-olds manage to do it just fine all around the world).
Oh, and tubeless tire systems also solve this problem just as well and with less weight.
But this problem has been solved for cyclists. Pretty well, actually.
You can buy inner tubes with sealant already in them:
And you can buy a decent portable pump:
And you are in exactly the same place. If you don't want to pump up your tires you can take CO2 cartridges or an electric pump, both of which have advantages and disadvantages that have been extensively discussed on this forum.
Keep in mind that most of those shenanigans mostly serve to just get you back riding quicker. You'll still need to know how to fix a flat tire on your bike, preferably in ugly field conditions (like along a busy highway shoulder in hosing rain). So you'll need to know how to remove and replace your wheel (and the tools to do that), be able to remove and reinstall the tire, and replace or patch the inner tube. None of the above is particularly difficult to master (lots of ten-year-olds manage to do it just fine all around the world).
Oh, and tubeless tire systems also solve this problem just as well and with less weight.
indianajo
Well-Known Member
I bought some slime branded tubes. The valve plugged up after a year and a half. Could not add air when the inevitable 15 psi/6 months leakage happened. Threw them away, use regular tubes and no slime. Knobby tires keep the trash off my tire carcasses.
