Every time I ride my rear tire goes flat and I walk home. I am terrible at patching flats and am trying to patch 2 tubes already to no luck. After walking an hour home today after confidence I fixed the issue I am ready to give up. This rim tape looks off center. Would this cause my flats? I cannot find a single defect on the tire itself or a puncture.
by VolcanicKirby2
13 Comments
YES, install new rimtape, you shouldn’t see the rim underneath it. Also, damn that’s an old wheel, haven’t seen such a narrow rim in years!
Also test it with new innertubes, so you are sure, I never patch innertubes by the way, they are so cheap that it’s easier to just replace them, for the few times a year I need to replace them it’s just easier.
Also seeing the rim, how old are the tires and what are they, maybe you do need new tires and with more puncture protection (and as wide as possible).
It certainly wouldn’t help. Have you looked at the tubes? You should be trying to look where the puncture is.
It’s not helping
Tubes tell the story, but I can’t say that the rim tape is helping either. Replace the tape. If your tubes have a wear pattern that looks like a slice then the lack of tape cover is the culprit.
Same thing happened to me with some old as rim tape scratching up the tubes and getting flats. New tape fixed it.
Yes
If you haven’t fixed the problem by now, try running your finger (carefully) along the inside of your tyre. Sometimes, things can imbed themselves into the rubber, so just the tip is pinning out the other side, but not necessarily visible. I spent a week getting flats on a tour one time because some steel mesh that’s inside car tyres wormed it’s way inside mine.
remove the tape and clean rim, feel carefully all the way round checking for burrs, check the valve stem hole. if you find any burrs use a file to remove them. a rat tail file is my preferred tool for this. clean the rim with alcohol & then reapply a new rim tape. i’ve been using tubeless tape on everything these days. it sticks nicely and doesn’t move. i’m not suggesting that you go tubeless, just adding an option for rim tape that i use on problematic rims. good luck
Are you bending the valve core on your tube? And then the tyre is not inflating properly ?
u don’t want to use rim tape. use tubeless tape. it actually sticks to the rim and is thinner.
Get some Velo plugs installed in your rims. 👍🏻
The question for you is, where on your tubes are the punctures?
If they’re on the inside of the tube, the part that touches the rim tape, not the tire, then there’s probably something snagging the tube sticking out of the rim someplace. The end of a spoke maybe?
You have to get rid of that snag somehow. File down the end of the spoke? Who knows? Gotta look at it. Replacing the rim tape won’t make a snag go away.
If the tube punctures are on the tire side, something poked through the tire and punctured the tube. What? Hunk of glass? Nail? Cactus thorn? Find that thing and make sure it’s gone from the tire.
Maybe. Where is the hole located on your tube?