Puncture Hell !!!!!

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I live on the South West Coast of Africa which is a desert. I have just aquired a new mountian bike and have been riding it for about three months in the desert just outside town.

A week ago I went to participate in a race about 200 km inland. The area has vegetation that typical of semi-arid african savanah including lot of thorn bushes. I thought I was prepared for the thorns as I had put some teflon tyre liners into my tyres.

Big mistake! During the 25km race I changed out my tubes four times and must have stopped to pump the tyres about ten times.

After the race I removed approximately 10 thorns from my tyres!

A number of the riders had no flats. They told me they had thicker tubes and "slime" in their wheels. Some of them also had tire liners in addition.

Is this the best anti-thorn strategy ? What other ways are there to prevent penetration related flats ? Are some tyres better than others, I use Hutchinson Pythons.
Any other advice would be appreciated.


Leon

Originally posted by Leon
I live on the South West Coast of Africa which is a desert. I have just aquired a new mountian bike and have been riding it for about three months in the desert just outside town.

A week ago I went to participate in a race about 200 km inland. The area has vegetation that typical of semi-arid african savanah including lot of thorn bushes. I thought I was prepared for the thorns as I had put some teflon tyre liners into my tyres.

Big mistake! During the 25km race I changed out my tubes four times and must have stopped to pump the tyres about ten times.

After the race I removed approximately 10 thorns from my tyres!

A number of the riders had no flats. They told me they had thicker tubes and "slime" in their wheels. Some of them also had tire liners in addition.

Is this the best anti-thorn strategy ? What other ways are there to prevent penetration related flats ? Are some tyres better than others, I use Hutchinson Pythons.
Any other advice would be appreciated.


Leon

I think slime and thicker tubes are about the best you can do. That really sucks.

Try downhill tubes. They are heavier but it sounds like you need the strength!

Originally posted by Leon
I live on the South West Coast of Africa which is a desert. I have just aquired a new mountian bike and have been riding it for about three months in the desert just outside town.

A week ago I went to participate in a race about 200 km inland. The area has vegetation that typical of semi-arid african savanah including lot of thorn bushes. I thought I was prepared for the thorns as I had put some teflon tyre liners into my tyres.

Big mistake! During the 25km race I changed out my tubes four times and must have stopped to pump the tyres about ten times.

After the race I removed approximately 10 thorns from my tyres!

A number of the riders had no flats. They told me they had thicker tubes and "slime" in their wheels. Some of them also had tire liners in addition.

Is this the best anti-thorn strategy ? What other ways are there to prevent penetration related flats ? Are some tyres better than others, I use Hutchinson Pythons.
Any other advice would be appreciated.


Leon

Originally posted by Leon
I live on the South West Coast of Africa which is a desert. I have just aquired a new mountian bike and have been riding it for about three months in the desert just outside town.

A week ago I went to participate in a race about 200 km inland. The area has vegetation that typical of semi-arid african savanah including lot of thorn bushes. I thought I was prepared for the thorns as I had put some teflon tyre liners into my tyres.

Big mistake! During the 25km race I changed out my tubes four times and must have stopped to pump the tyres about ten times.

After the race I removed approximately 10 thorns from my tyres!

A number of the riders had no flats. They told me they had thicker tubes and "slime" in their wheels. Some of them also had tire liners in addition.

Is this the best anti-thorn strategy ? What other ways are there to prevent penetration related flats ? Are some tyres better than others, I use Hutchinson Pythons.
Any other advice would be appreciated.


Leon

With out knowing riding style and weight, I would think either slime tubes or thorn resistant tubes would suffice. I personally do not like slime tubes because they are messy, and until they slime gets redistributed before every ride, the wheel lopes. Also it adds weight that is at the outer most part of the wheel and when rotating, re. accelerating, its mass increases so the weight has effectively increased. If you weigh less than 175lbs and have bettr than average riding skills, I'd try a thorn resistant tube and high volume tires like Specialized Enduro Pros there are other brands, but I don't know them. I am using the Specialized in a 2.2 successfully in El Paso and Phoenix with out problem. El Paso is insanely rocky and filled with cactii. BTW I weigh 200lbs and haven't had a flat and I even went back to a regular butyl tube.

Spin Skinz have helped me a lot. Nothing works 100% of the time, but since putting the skinz in I have not had any flats from thorns. They are pretty damn light and don't have any of the issues slime tubes have.

K.

I use kevlar (yellow coloured) liners between the tyre Maxxis 1.9 LarssenT rear and Panaracer Trailblaster 1.95 front) and (normal)tubes. I find that the liner wraps itself around much more on a narrow tyre than any tyre above 2.0. I've raced with this set up and never had a puncture since fitting these liners. If you do see a thorn in the tyre when racing (if you stop at all) leave it in the tyre until the finish then change the tube.
Or if you're happy with your present set up it's cool.

Happy trails and races,

Originally posted by Martystan
I use kevlar (yellow coloured) liners between the tyre Maxxis 1.9 LarssenT rear and Panaracer Trailblaster 1.95 front) and (normal)tubes. I find that the liner wraps itself around much more on a narrow tyre than any tyre above 2.0. I've raced with this set up and never had a puncture since fitting these liners. If you do see a thorn in the tyre when racing (if you stop at all) leave it in the tyre until the finish then change the tube.
Or if you're happy with your present set up it's cool.

Happy trails and races,

Yep, I learned that leason the hard way. The day after my thorn ridden ride (see first post) I was riding back home up one of the dry river valleys. I have never experienced a flat here, but it would seem as if this weekend was jynxed ! I noticed a something stuck between the knobbies on the tyre. At first I thought it was a pebble an carried on riding. After about 10 minutes the "pebble" was still there so I stopped only to discover it was the back of a huge thorn. You guessed it I made the mistake of removing it which prompted my fifth tube change out for the weekend.

Won't do that again in a hurry.

Leon

Originally posted by ireman_1
Spin Skinz have helped me a lot. Nothing works 100% of the time, but since putting the skinz in I have not had any flats from thorns. They are pretty damn light and don't have any of the issues slime tubes have.

K.

What is Spin Skinz ? Tyre liners ?

Leon

Yes. Spin Skinz are kevlar tire liners. They are light and durable. It sounds like the person from an earlier post mentioned them as well (Spin skinz are yellow). Have fun.

K.

slime them for thorns

Go to notubes.com and buy stan's tubless tire kits . He uses liquid latex that seals any puncture and it is super lite set up. I have been using it for 6 months now and have not had any problems. the kits go for about $60 us. Tire liners, thick tubes, slime are all out of date Stans no tubes rock!!

Ditto on the Stan's Notubes. I have had good luck so far and it self seals small holes

I would start with the tires. The pythons are fast, but the reviews characterize them as thin, having weak sidewalls, no puncture resistance. They're no good in the sand or the mud either.

http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Tire/product_23244.shtml

I'm hooked on my Ritchey Excavader Front / Elevader Rear, but I must admit they don't handle sand or mud all that well either. I switch to the old 700g bomb Velociraptors for riding in that.

I'd go to the spin skins next, then to the puncture resistant tubes, and finally to the slime. Slime is effective, but I hate using it. It's heavy and when you do get a nasty cut, it makes a mess. Unless you're also carrying soap and water to clean them up, you may find the patches won't stick to the slimed tubes. Your case sounds tough enough that may have to use it anyway and carry a couple of spare pre-slimed tubes.

I personally like Slimes. If they are 2 heavy for ya, try SlimeLites (217 grams). You can get them for $8 at REI, and $9 at Academy. I used SlimeLites in Lajitas, and never lost air in a 32 mile race in the desert. I got home 2 days later, tires still haven't lost air, I changed the tires out for another race, and I found 6 thorns in my tires. No airloss at all! I love them! I have never flatted out of about 30 mtb races. (I just jinxed myself)

kk

There really is no good solution for thorns and tube tires. You can use liners and slime tubes but even this is not very effective since a good size thorn can still push through a liner and sidewalls are not protected. Slime will also help but the problem with tubes is that their walls are so thin that they don't seal very effectively when punctured and deflate very fast. Combining these two will also make for extremely heavy wheels. The rotational weight will be higher since the weight is towards the outside. Definately not ideal if you want a racing solution.
You're best bet is to go tubeless which is by far the most effective thorn resistant system. Tubelss tires generally loose air extremely slow when punctured by a thorn as long as you don't pull the thorn out. Since the air needs to escape through the tire itself which is much thicker than a tube, the thorn will tend to seal the hole long enough to finish a ride. If you add tire sealant such as Stans latex sealant you can end up with a tire thats virtually thorn proof. I would strongly recomend Stans sealant over other kinds such as slime because its lighter, more effective, and very easy to clean up. There are several ways to go tubeless. You can use UST tires and rims which require no sealant to seal the tire on the rim (strongly recomended using sealant anyway for puctures) or you can go to www.notubes.com and get the tubeless conversion kits for standard rims and tires using sealant and a special rim strip. The second option can be a bit more of a pain because its messy to set up and kind of a hassle to deal with but it can work extremely well. It will not work with all tires either.

I was at the LBS and the owner had just brought in Stans notubes. I was very impressed by his demo when he repeatedly stabbed at the treated tires with a needle and the tires remained fully pumped up.