I look at the Continental wear indicators. Always carry a boot cut from a retired tire wrapped around the pump and secured with duct tape. Don't leave home without it! Co2 good for 1 shot only!
I have a good look before each ride. Look suspicious pick another bike. Cut or worn spot in the trash. I use the widest tire that fits. Better mileage .
You people at the GCN covered everything about cycling! I'm a newbie started 9 months ago and every time I search the internet about bikes, you guys are always there! Thank you so much!
I'm amazed by the puncture protection provided by some tires these days. I've put about 6 or 7000 kms on a set of Michelin Pro4 Endurance, including a lot of winter riding, and I've had only 1 puncture during that time.
Great video and interesting poll question, but I’ve been burned too many times bragging about how long it’s been since my last puncture only to be caught by the side of the road with a blown tire. I’ll spare myself the jinx this time around.
I used to have Vittoria tyres on my bike I have two puncture per week I've got fed up about so I swap to the continental GP 5000 I never have a puncture the best tire so far...
I puf a 2nd hand wheel on the front with a perished coloured tyre. My friend told me the coloured part had gone hard and it was obviously warped. I didnt change it. Going down a hill into a turn I slid out since the dry coloured part hit the road. Skinned elbow through my clothing and bruised thigh taught me a lesson.
One way to reduce punctures is to not overinflate your tires. The number on the sidewall is the maximum pressure, not the recommended pressure. What pressure should you run at? If you are using high quality supple tires, it turns out to be just enough to make the handling good. Higher pressures can make you slower (counterintuitive perhaps, but well established).
Top sign that your tyre is worn out: Explosive puncture, fellow club riders look at tyre and point to tyre delamination and inner tube poking through. "There's your problem!". Yes this did happen to me, after years of cycling experience. Easy to forget how many miles a tyre has done, should really get round to creating a maintenance/wear spreadsheet.
I used to get flats but, since 2016 I started rolling on tubeless tyres, zero flats. I carry an inner tube along with a few tools CO2 carts and the Sram caliper shipping wedges in case I have to fix a flat.
If you do ride older tyres, try maintaining them with a mini-screwdriver! Yes I just said that.. use it to pick out the tiny pebbles that collect in the tyre surface, these stack up and ignored can cause a puncture while riding! 👍
I change my tires when I notice that there have occurred some deeper cuts in the rubber from glass or sharp gravel. With every cut the chances increase that a glass or gravel particel will go into the already existing cut and work its way through the tire during one single ride. If there are no deeper cuts I change the tire when I can see the carcass through the worn rubber in one single place. I have punctures very rarely, one in about 10.000 km or one every two years. I use Continental 4 Season tires only on my race bike and ride them with high pressure (8 to 9 bar), even it is not so comfortable. (My weight is 73 kg). When I used to ride GP5000 or Schwalbe One I had a puncture every month or more often.
As far as some of my tyre replacements go: I've had a rear that had a flat tread so I replaced it before my most recent century; two rears that got chopped open (one by glass, the other by a chunk of metal that took the inner tube with it); a front that had a compromised bead structure and exploded when it was parked up in the sun; a set on a mountain bike that got a sharp stone lodged in the rubber and gave me two punctures in quick succession; and the most recent casualty was a front GP4000 that had done 12,000km and the tread started coming unstuck from the carcass.
In 36 years of road cycling and 30 years of mechanising I have never seen the gcn tube hernia. But if you had a cut like that in any tyre deflation would be instant. A cut I. The side wall damage only happens when you ride the tyre to flat which is one reason that the tyre noodle might not get you home.
Same tyre 20k miles but over 10 years (before I retired) looked fine but the grip wasn't there any more. Resulted in me face planting on a roundabout. Only 1 small sidewall puncture in its life!
I had a nail go through my rear tire, a thick, “puncture-proof” winter tire. First ever puncture, and I decided to swap to my summer tires (it was getting warmer) rather than just replace the tube. The very next ride on the new tires, someone left a ripped up aluminum can on the lakefront trail and it gashed the new front tire wide open. Instant blowout.
One thing I had recently and never heard about before is that my Michelin MTB tyres were too loose after 10+ years of "use". So I had four flat tyres in a row with always the same strange finding that the valve was torn off. I boiled it down to the tyre spinning around the rim and ripping the inner tyre off. Replacing the outer tyres solved the problem, so take note.
And small cuts are permanently repairable by putting an inner-tube-patch on the inside of the tire. Even bigger cuts can sometimes be repaired with needle, thread and a patch. Repair, reuse, recycle.
@@PoxyBear never tried gorilla tape. If you use an inner tube and the hole is just a few millimeters a few layers should work. It's just tricky to keep it in place.
the trad pattern isn'tt a good indicator of a worn out tire. Many have superficial tread just for looks. I used to run some schwalbe touring tires that had a note on the instructions saying to replace them when you wear throught to the different coloured rubber in the puncture protection bands.
I'm using Continental Gatorskin tires. Maybe they are slower, than other tires, but I didn't have even single puncture after 12 000 km of riding sometimes very bad roads. I just rotated them, to keep them wearing out evenly.
Rotated the back to front cause it's a Gator Hardcase and even tougher. Gatorskin goes in the back. You're not really supposed to put a worn tire in the front! Nothing slower than a puncture, and no team car will ever follow me!
Hi, i've been using gp5000s and keep getting punctures in the rear, the tyre has flattened but the wear indicator is quite clearly visible and i've only done about 1000 miles. So should I continue using perhaps try a different inner tube or get a new tyre? Thanks in advance.
One of my fairly newish tyres has some small cracks only in the wall on the right side. None on the left side. Getting a bit worried about the state of it if more cracks appear. Fortunately it was not a super expensive tyre.
I know I will hear lots of boos and hisses about this...….I use tuffy tire liners and usually make it without any punctures throughout the year. I ride for the love of it and get in about 3000 to 4500 km per year. I check my tires before every ride and give them a quick wipe down. Takes a minute but saves me 10 minutes on the side of the road fixing a puncture. The whole point is to enjoy the ride and having punctures really messes with that. Cheers!
Do you switch front to rear when the rear tyre has reached half way on its wear point? Or wait til it's almost worn out and just replace it but keep the front as is? I used to switch but don't now as the rears wear out so fast!
The rotation direction only has an impact on the grooves pattern. On car tires this pattern is designed to chase the water to the sides, but that's a non-issue for road bikes with a contact patch that is only a few millimeters wide. So short answer, the rotation direction does not matter, except for cosmetic reasons.
What'll you do if you're riding fixed gear and turn the wheel around to ride the tailwind! Does it void a warranty? Maybe create 0.25 watts extra aero drag. Even out the wear caused by the crown of the road? Did anyone hear that tree fall?
I bought some cheap red wall tyres for me bicycle from ebay last year. They look cool but have developed deep cracks in them around the edges from being inflated... Should i replace them? As the still feel okay
Help please !! I have a Carrera Vengeance, I'm doing a lot of commuting on the road, so just wondering what tyre you would recommend for me? Original tyre details Kenda 52-584 (650 x 52B) (27.5 x 2.10) Kind regards Lionel Kind regards Lionel
What about the 'feeling ' that you have a heavy stroke or something like slippery some times but your eye can caught any diferent than the usual. And what about the small cuts not bigger than 5 mm ?
"Big cuts" My pair of Panaracer Gravelkings have a total of 4 big cuts in between the 2 of them(thanks to my due inexperience of running my tyre pressure way too low 2 years back,as a beginner). I simply patched them up with around 2 layers of duct tape,and to this day,I'm still running that same pair of tyres.
Wait, but if you already have a set of £80+ tyres and you total one you're not really buying an upgrade so there is cause to worry. I trashed a Vitoria corsa speed 3 days after buying it. I didn't consider the replacement an upgrade.
Do not put a worn tire on the front as a sudden front tire failure will probably result in a dangerous crash. Sheldon Brown says "Put the good one on the front" www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-rotation.html
A quastion regarding the "expanding" of tires: Is it possible the tires slightly expand over time --> meaning: is it possible that my 28mm tires become broader over time (moths/years)? I am trying to fit larger tires but I am worried that even if the might fit in the beginning, they might scrape my frame after some time (2-3years)
Note how all the failures involved tubes and not tubeless did you not fancy a pink shower. All the failures that are illustrated here would have been harder to repair roadside tubeless. If you slash a tubeless you might be able to plug it or you’ll have to patch it and pop a tube in messier and trickier to get the patch to stay in place in a tubeless tyre.
On tire age... why do so many store old tubulars in a dark place and use them years later? I know some Cross riders have brought out tubs that are years out of production to win on them.
My biggest issue is getting a new tyre mounted without damaging the inner tube. I literally always damage at least one because there are tyres that are incredibly difficult. Continental GP4000s already was a real pain in the arse but Schwalbe Pro One is a sheer nightmare. Two tubes died in the attempt, one was damaged but fixable. This can't be normal, can it? Am I just being a blithering idiot or do other fellow riders face the same problem?
Some tires just fit very tightly. Warm them in the oven or sunlight before trying to install them. The heat will make them more elastic and will mount a bit easier.
@@robertbarriger2596 I'll try that next time. I think I found a technique to make it easier. When I deflate the tube completely before putting on the last bit of the tyre, it works much better...
I’m enjoying the bike so far ru-vid.comUgkxMesz3KOGEmwmvyKQfLfrRSUXLFzfVHZA My only real complaints are the brakes and the pedals. I feel like a bike designed for bigger people should have much larger pedals and more heavy duty brakes. I’ve only gotten two really good rides out of it, minimal downhill action, and the brakes feel like they’re already going out. A larger person has more momentum, so I think this wasn’t thought through very well. Also, I wear size 13-14 wide shoes. My feet cramp up on these pedals that are clearly made for smaller feet. Since I’m not a pro rider (and I don’t think many are who purchase this bike) I don’t think that the straps on the pedal are necessary at all. None of this takes away from the enjoyment I get from riding, however. I’ll just head to a bike shop to improve on a few things.
It depends in part on how deep they are. If they reach all the way in to the carcass, the tire may be vulnerable. Also, if you have several such cuts right next to each other, the tire may tear altogether at that spot.
They certainly cost more per mile than almost any passenger car tire. They can last 40,000 miles easily, whereas a bike tire may go 3000 miles with a light rider. Half the tires doesn't make up the difference.
GCN Tech, There it is again: the rubber spikes on the tire. Repeatedly, how many grams do those rubber spikes on the tire weigh? You go on about weight and aerodynamics. I enjoy your channel yet wonder why you do not address weight issues with such glorifying the modern, extra-light frame. I will keep asking. Other viewers have seen this comment and I will keep repeating it. Thanks.
Hey Ronin, i have already added your question in for an upcoming Tech Clinic, so keep an eye out for that 😎. The weight on those bits are very small though 👍
@@GCNalex, Yes, I realize the small amount, but the turbulence created(aerodynamics), over distance, is at issue. Could you calculate the drag over the course of Le Tour de France, for example? Small things add up. Thanks.
So I guess having my bike sitting in various different sheds and garages over the last 25 years or so probably means it needs new tires. 😅 Surf Wisely.
For a crash course in tyre wear, try riding fixed gear for a couple of months. You'll be an expert in no time and you won't even have to worry about dated and cracked tyres. They certainly won't last all that long. Aahh the tyre and money consuming fun of skidding...
@@pureroadie That they are indeed. That's why I keep a front brake on my track bike when on the road. I get to enjoy skidding to my heart's content and also keep smiling with all my teeth intact.
What about this kind of wear: drive.google.com/file/d/1iQMvPWcPMOMfa0dpPEfxirmD-B2-L9OU/view It's Schwalbe cx pro tire. I think it wore this way because I rode on gravel a lot. And it was front tire. It seems that these tires wear that way very quick. I wonder how safe it is to ride with a tire that has still enough thread, but carcass is visible between thread knobs. Will it be strong enough when I break hard from high speed..? 60Km/h maybe. I like these tires because they have narrow thread, without too many/big knobs at sides(kicks less water and mud up.(with long mudguard and mud flap, my toes stay cleaner and tryer than with most gravel tires.. Also chain is cleaner too)). They roll also fast.. And have good grip on any road. On asphalt they tend to understeer on high speed, when new though.. and on rear the tire wears really fast. But it was so good front tire.. But because it's carcass start to show between treads so fast.. I hesitate to buy more of these.. But can't find anything lelse wit's exactly same narrow thread patern and under 35mm in width.
Best bang for your buck upgrade 😂 but they are sponsored by Pirelli and a set of pzeros is going to easily set you back by 100 bucks. They are the best tires on the market no question about that, I've been using pzeros and centurato for years now but they sure are expensive and not economical by any stretch of the term
I spent 40 € on a 35 mm Cinturato and I've been riding it for 16.000 km on my rear wheel without a single puncture. The front tire will probably last 20.000 km. Unless you're racing, skip the P Zeros and go for the Cinturato.
I got 3 bikes, one has the centurato 28mm, then there is my race bike and i got the pzero 25mm on that one, the last one is a vintage road bike with cst 23mm tires. Pzero are worth it if you train fast or if you're racing as you said, the centurato are the durable ones but I've also tried the pzero 4s tire this winter on my race bike and they are also really reliable tires. The only thing is that Pirelli are not cheap, you're always between 100-90€ for a pair. My cst 23mm are like 15€ each 😅 you can also find Michelin tires at 20€ a pair. So I wouldn't call Pirelli tires cheap, not at all, they are expensive as hell but at least you are paying for a really good tire
