Touring, I don't think I've had more than one or two flats. This is over decades of occasional tours, and tens of thousands of miles. On backroads, there tends to be very little debris, and wider tires get fewer flats anyhow. So I choose the most supple, comfortable and fun tires I can find. Puncture protection is only a minor consideration.
Punctures seem to occur mostly during organized events that use the shoulders of busy highways. I avoid those, not just because I get flats, but also because I don't enjoy riding there. Some riders seem to get more punctures on urban streets, but as long as you stay out of the gutter, the road surface also tends to be relatively clean. Overall, once you go to really wide tires, you will find that you get almost zero punctures. I have ridden more than 12,000 miles on Grand Bois Hetres, most of them in the city and suburbs, yet I've had only two punctures. Both occurred when the tires were very worn. One was a very sharp flint, the other a huge steel wire from an exploded truck tire. Disclosure: Our sister company, Compass Bicycles Ltd., sells Grand Bois tires. Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly www.bikequarterly.com Follow our blog at http://www.janheine.wordpress.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
