Pulled broken glass out of my tire . . .

[NbyNW]

I've suspected for a couple of days that my front tire might be slowly leaking, so when I got home tonight I gave both wheels a thorough look-see.

I found two little chips of glass embedded in my front tire, managed to coax them out with a tiny hex wrench. The glass left behind a small cut, maybe a millimeter wide and almost a quarter inch long. It looks pretty deep -- I'm not sure yet of the condition of the tube, as I'm just too tired and hungry right now to deal with it yet.

How serious is this? Can I ride my bike with this little hole in my tire, is there a product that I can use to seal it? Do I need a new tire?

Would love some advice! Thanks --

[Eden]

Small cuts in your tires should not pose a problem. If its a very large cut and your tube can poke through then you'd need to replace it, but if you had to replace a tire every time you got a sliver - ouch, I'd be replacing a lot of tires. Just make sure there's nothing rough sticking out on the inside of the tire and you should be fine (hubby got a fairly big sliver the other day and it must have cut some of the kevlar - it left a rough spot that was able to wear a hole in his tube). If you really want to seal it up you can use super glue.

Check your tires every once in a while and you'll probably find glass that has not gone all of the way through. It's good to pull the pieces out before they work their way all of the way in.

[NbyNW]

Thanks Eden! Glad to know it's nothing to worry about . . .

. . . and kind of surprised I've managed to avoid this happening until now.

[RoadRaven]

If you have a cut and the cut goes right through the tyre, I assume you had to change the tube?
When you change the tube put a piece of old tyre on the inside of your tyre against the cut before you replace the tube.
This will preclude any bits of stick, glass or other irritants working their way through and giving you another flat.

If the cut doesn't go all the way through, just check each time before you ride, and if these were race tyres, replace the tyre and use it on a training bike.