Where the rubber hits the road....

Yeah, the blurry picture doesn't help...but that's not a pebble balanced on my tire.  That's the head of a inch and a half nail.  If pictures had audio...you'd be hearing that nice hisssssss noise.  On the up side, you'll notice the picture is take in the comfort of my office.  So I must have encountered this little gem shortly before arriving.  So remember, even though there isn't ice and snow in the bike lanes this year, there are still things you should be keeping any eye out for!

And......apparently the perfect weather for flat tires!

Note the look of dismay in his eyes....I definitely have that!

Ok, I left my office just over 16 hours ago.  I'm back.  While this alone could be considered depressing, it's not what has me slightly annoyed.  It's that I've had THREE flat tires since then!  Now for the record these 3 flats include a set of mountain bike tires with stan's no tube setup, a traditional tubed tire, and a "puncture" proof kevlar tire with Mr. Tuffy tire liners!!

So there you have it....there is no tire God.  You will get flats if you "Ride in Reno".

I am now the proud owner of a tube pile!!

I'm calling BS on this one in any shape or size! 

On a more serious note.  The Stan's no tube setup has been working pretty well.  I pump them up once every two weeks or so and add a bit of stan's once a month.  I don't know what I hit yesterday, but it drained two ounces of stan's fluid out onto a puddle on the ground in about 20 seconds.  I know it was two ounces because I had added two ounce the night before.

I was lucky that I always pack an extra tube however, or I would have been calling for a ride.  It was a super messy adventure, but I was able to throw a tube in the tire and ride the rest of the way home.  Of course I had another puncture by the time I got home (or perhaps someone didn't check the slimy tire insides well enough to remove the offending sharp object)....but I made it to the driveway still riding!

I was slightly dumbstruck when the Xtracycle with Tourguard Kevlar tires and Mr. Tuffy strips flatted out on the way to work.  I didn't find the offending sharp thing when I patched it....but I'm counting it as a bad things come in threes issue.  I'm sure I'll be flat free for months.

***I immediately take back my last statement....I don't want "flat" karma coming my way!!***

So anyways, watch out of the pokey stuff out there if your riding in this great weather.  I'm officially going to be weaving all over the bike lane to avoid anything that even looks remotely sharp!

  

An update on running tubeless tires.

A few months ago I was fed up with all the flats I was getting on the commute with the Salsa Fargo.  To be fair I didn't have tuffy tire liners in these tires, but I mean it's just a 6 mile commute each way and I was flatting on a pretty regular interval.  So instead of doing it the easy way and putting in tire liners, I decided to try switching over to a stan's no tube setup.  You can see the process here if you want.



Anyway, I thought I'd give you an update on how it's worked out since then.  To start with....I didn't do this with "new" tires.  I began with tires that had more than a few holes and gashes.  The Stan's solution sealed these up with relatively little problem (even a 1/4 gash with a bit of time).  However, on the initial ride I did get a puncture that really "bleed" a puddle of Stan's before sealing up.  I was not a happy camper and wondered if I'd wasted my time with the whole thing.

Apparently that was a one time deal.  I haven't had to do a thing (added air a few times) since then!!  So obviously I've been pretty happy with the system as a whole.  The first time I really even looked at my tires since that day was yesterday, when I had to add some real air (10 psi) before heading to work.  You'd think this would have caused me to look the tire over a bit more carefully, but hey I'm running Stan's, so I just blew it off thinking it would seal up on the ride.

On the commute in things seemed to be getting a bit squishy again......and upon arriving at work I did take the time to have a closer look.  I found 1 piece of wire, 2 massive (rose bush?) thorns, and 6 goat heads.  I confidently pulled the largest thorn out (commence serious hissing and air loss) and rotated the tire so the hole was to the bottom and waited for the Stan's sealant to do it's job.....and waited.....and waited.....  There was no white stuff present and the hissing continued.

Yep, I'd actually used up all the Stan's solution I put in over the last 3 months.  So I did what I could....jammed the thorn back in and stopped up the leak (it still amazes me this works).  It held well enough that I could ride it home that evening after just a bit of pumping!

When I got home I added more Stan's sealant and re-inflated.   They holes (all 9 of them) sealed up in a few seconds and I was good to go.



So all in all the system works great and I'd recommend it.  Just remember you do have to top off once in a while because you lose a little (or sometimes a lot) with each little puncture that you never know about!

Really not digging the goatheads...

I'm just not loving these things.  I actually discovered this (well actually just a soft tire) when I went to ride in yesterday.  Since I hadn't actually seen the goathead at that point, I did the "logical" thing.  Pumped it up and road to work on it. 

When I got to work I saw what you see below.  The cool part about a goathead is that once they're in, the leak is often very slow.....until you remove them.  It's always kind of amazing to me that they actually act as their own plug.  Then of course you remove them and the tire goes down in about 30 seconds. 

Needless to say I'm getting really good at the sub-five minute patch jog....oh yeah, and this one held.

I seem to be finding a lot of these this year.  Here's the latest culprit.

Happy Halloween!

Another busy weekend is in the books and Halloween night is still to come!  We managed to get away from projects this weekend and ride to the Zombie Crawl downtown with friends.   Actually, in hind sight it must be quite a spectacle to see 6 people riding bikes in full zombie dress....at least I haven't seen it on the Walking Dead yet!  It was awesome to see so many Renoites out in full costume.  The local pub crawls are always well attended but this one must have been one of the bigger ones this year!  Every bar in downtown Reno was a block deep with lines of people to get in the door!

One of our group had an awesome Pinhead costume, but somehow I don't have a picture.  Which is weird because everyone wanted their picture taken with him in the pubs!

I almost didn't even have time to get made up....I was changing flat tires (three times in one night)!  That I'll leave for another post.

The next morning we biked out to Stone House Cafe (using the relatively new bike lanes on Arlington Ave.) for a much needed morning after breakfast!  It was warm enough by 10:30 to sit outside and enjoy some great food (if you had a few layers)!

 
   I was a little slow with the camera, so this is all I have to show for it!