No more flats

Aarg! went out to the garage and my rear tire was completely flat. It's continental gator skin tire with a slime tube. I refilled the tire and it still seems to have a slow leak, something I thought didn't happen with slime. I can't find anything on the outside of the tire, but haven't yet checked with the tires and tubes off the rear wheel. suggestions?
 
Nova Haibike said:
Multi Seal does not recommend their product for bicycle tires. However, they supposedly worked with Finish Line to develop its tubeless tire sealant. That said, Finish Line sealant does not get good reviews.
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Had it in my bike since February, Ecotric 20" fat tire, no problems yet
 
Chancelucky2 said:
Aarg! went out to the garage and my rear tire was completely flat. It's continental gator skin tire with a slime tube. I refilled the tire and it still seems to have a slow leak, something I thought didn't happen with slime. I can't find anything on the outside of the tire, but haven't yet checked with the tires and tubes off the rear wheel. suggestions?
Click to expand...


Add more Slime.
 
Just replaced my Trigger tires that cam with my Specialized Vado 5 to Schwalbe Marathon E Plus and Schwalbe inter tubes. The previous tires ran for about 1,600 miles and 1st flat last week. Not a fan of fixing flat by the side of the road hence new puncture resistance. The are heavier and not as lively as the Triggers but corners well , silent, and hopefully no flat any time soon 🤞
btw the nicest customer service at Schwalbe...he recommended to run the tires at 55psi rear and 50psi front. I usually run at 60psi but going with their recommendation.
 
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Very sorry!!! Try pumping tire to a lowish pressure like 40 psi to see if the slime can fill the hole. You might see it on outside of tire too if there is something that caused the puncture but is gone?
 
I think slime looses a little bit of it's effectiveness over time. I generally deflate the tire, squeeze it out, and put more in once or twice a year. The fresh stuff looks a lot different than the stuff that was rolling abound in the tube for six months. The only thing to do at this point is pull the tube out and see what's up. Not a big deal really. Take some time to run your hand around the inside of the tire to make sure something isn't through on the inside, and make sure the rim liner isn't the culprit. They can slide around and cause problems, or get hard edges that will cut the tube over time.
 
Thanks all for the suggestions!

Replaced the tube this morning. I had filled it some the evening before, ridden 3 miles, and let the bike sit overnight. When I checked it in the morning, the tire was completely flat again. I'm not that mechanically inclined and there's something about fixing a flat on a new to me bike that always feels a little different. Anyway, there was a tiny bit of slime--a dot or two-- outside the tube and no signs of ingress on the outside of the tires themselves. I tried to refill the tube to about 10 pounds pressure just to locate the leak and it couldn't hold anything. I checked out the tube as best I could and it looked to be a leak on a seam. The very nice guy who sold me the bike had thrown in a couple tubes, so I installed one of those without slime and did 24 road miles (60 lbs. pressure) without incident. It's probably good for the soul to have to fix a flat every now and then.
The scary thing is that before I discovered the flat, I had done a 40+ mile ride with some relatively steep downhills and was going 32 or 33 mph. Interestingly, the "mileage remaining" indicator may have picked up what was going on pretty quickly. It showed my miles remaining decreasing fairly suddenly towards the end of the ride.
 
Chancelucky2 said:
Thanks all for the suggestions!

Replaced the tube this morning. I had filled it some the evening before, ridden 3 miles, and let the bike sit overnight. When I checked it in the morning, the tire was completely flat again. I'm not that mechanically inclined and there's something about fixing a flat on a new to me bike that always feels a little different. Anyway, there was a tiny bit of slime--a dot or two-- outside the tube and no signs of ingress on the outside of the tires themselves. I tried to refill the tube to about 10 pounds pressure just to locate the leak and it couldn't hold anything. I checked out the tube as best I could and it looked to be a leak on a seam. The very nice guy who sold me the bike had thrown in a couple tubes, so I installed one of those without slime and did 24 road miles (60 lbs. pressure) without incident. It's probably good for the soul to have to fix a flat every now and then.
The scary thing is that before I discovered the flat, I had done a 40+ mile ride with some relatively steep downhills and was going 32 or 33 mph. Interestingly, the "mileage remaining" indicator may have picked up what was going on pretty quickly. It showed my miles remaining decreasing fairly suddenly towards the end of the ride.
Get your LBS to install Tannus Armours... https://tannusamerica.com/products/tannus-armour
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Since I started riding e-bikes I've had two flats. No sealant made would have saved me from the first flat. That was a roofing nail that went clear through the tire, both sides of the tube, and buried itself in the inner wall of the rim. The second flat would have been ideal for a sealant solution. That one was caused by a bit of wire (looked like it came from a car tire steel belt) that put a pin hole in the tube. That one happened on the road in front of my local REI so I just pushed the bike inside and had them fix it.

At the end of the day I'd say do whatever works for you. I'm pretty good at fixing flats and I carry an electric air pump in my pannier bags, so I don't worry about it too much.
 
I looked at the reviews of the Tannus Armours and all of them were for riders using MTB tires. I happen to have 32mm road tires. I know they make them for narrower higher pressure tires, but does anyone have experience with the Tannus Armours with road tires?
 
Sierratim said:
I like this article on bike flats; http://www.frankrevelo.com/hiking/biking_flatprevention.htm . He's a big fan of puncture-resistant tires like the Schwalbe Marathon and Stans in his inner tubes.
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First let me be clear. I am not by all means expert in tires and reviewing them so this is just commentaries of a bike enthusiast who has owned few bikes in life with various types of tires.

The main reason I switched to Schwalbe Marathon E Plus, from Specialized Trigger which came on my Specialized Vado 5 was that I had a flat last week and am not a fan of fixing flat by the side of the road.
Marathon E Plus promises one of the better puncture resistance in the industry which attracted me. Will report on this later when I have ride them enough.
Today I rode 31 miles. Had variety of conditions. Wind behind and front, rain (although it doesn’t rain where I live in this part of California), sun, cloud.
The road was smooth black top, chopped asphalt, cement, and some debris from wind. No dirt or gravel.
I did have some climb and some downhill.
The main comment about this comparison can be summarized as the differece between riding a sedan with top of the line Michelin tire vs riding a Jeep with all weather good tire.
If this gives you the idea no need to read on...
With E Plus I could feel the bumps on the road.
Noticeably lazier than Trigger.
More solid ride. Feeling you are riding on tire vs air.
Good cornering. Good grip in all the conditions mentioned above.
The ride was 31 miles in Turbo mode with 29% battery remaining. Not in a position to compare miles per battery usage. But it seems a bit more battery usage??
There was no worrying going through everything.
My previous tires were 7 months old with 1,600 miles on them with only one flat last week. Not sure if this is normal.
The front tire was in great shape and rear tire had some signs of wear.
The option could have been to replace with the same tire and keep doing it at the same interval. But I decided to make the upgrade and not worry about having flats for many more miles to go.
I will update you as I ride these tires more for whatever worth. I am sure there are some experts out there who will give us much better review and comparison.
I will creat a new thread on this also so friends can comment.
 
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My experience with Slime has been very positive. After putting slime in my tubes I almost never had a flat. I know it works because I saw slime oozing out of the tire a couple of times.

That being said the only time slime failed (it was working for a day then the same spot was leaking again) was when I changed my tires with wider ones (40 to 51mm tires) and used the my previous tubes which were good for up to 47mm. Well the lesson was even though 47 was close enough to 51mm still the wall becomes thinner when you inflate it to fit the wider tire and when the puncture happens the whole stretches making it much harder for slime to work. Since then I have been using tubes good for up to 2.4"and it has been solid with no flats.

I would still carry a pump with me (or at least an adapter to use with gas station pumps) since you may have to pump the tire back up 1-2 times until slime seals the puncture.
 
The gravel parking lot for a bike trail near me had a bunch of car breakins where windows were smashed. Talking about 8 or 10 vehicles. After that most everyone was getting flats constantly including me, sometimes both tires. There was no way we could clean all the glass fragments out of the gravel and had to walk our bikes through the lot all season. I was running Swalbe Marathons about 35mm wide on my gravel bike at the time with regular dry tubes. I finally broke down and ordered some inexpensive liners from Amazon and installed them. No more flats all season for me!

A word of caution when fixing flats... careful when you run your fingers along the inside of the tire looking for the puncturing object. You can get a nasty cut from glass shards or metal poking through the tire. An old rag works pretty well at finding that stuff if you drag it gently along the inside of the tire.
 
Do we have any Tannus Aither users here? A puncture not too long ago that went right through my Marathon Plus (with Slime no less) in the rain at night had me seriously considering them for a while. They look like a complete nightmare if you break a spoke though, and my former Ebike broke 5 over the past few months.
 
Chancelucky2 said:
does anyone have experience with the Tannus Armours with road tires?
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Yes, but not good
electricbikereview.com

Tannus Armour

Hey all, All the flat tires I've had so far have been on the rear tire. I suspect that is due to the weight of the motor and cargo on the rear rack making it easier for sharp debris to cut through the tire tread and penetrate the casing. A couple of years ago, I tried using Slime tubes and...
electricbikereview.com electricbikereview.com
 
deserthi said:
I installed Tannus Amour two weeks ago on my new Cube eBike. I am never going tubeless again. I find no downside to TA and will use it in all my bikes from now on.
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I agree that the Tannus Armour inserts look quite good, but the $180 price and the hassle to install were problems for me.
 
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