Quote Originally Posted by boy in a kilt View Post

I suspect that skill plays into it somehow. More experienced riders can generally float their bikes over bumps and tend to avoid things that will shred their tires. Or they just get sick of flats, spend the extra money and get really good tires.
Hey, c',mon, not true! I can completely wear out a tire and not get a flat, and I've gone through a lot of wornout tires on my road bike. I've only gotten one flat and one blow-out, and one tire that was almost a blow-out from the sidewalls being cut.

I get biking into new territory and anything goes. The most dangerous areas for me is when the talls trees alongside the road (this is Oregon) dapples shade onto the asphalt right when the sun is in a specific position in the sky, plus I am on a steep descent, and I can't see the potholes, cracked asphalt and chunks of rock in the road until I am right there because it is all hidden in the shade.

Or last weekend, me and the biking buddies were going down a long steep descent on a route new to us, and we were all going pretty fast, and wow, right there, spread all across the paved shoulder of the road was a huge mound of blue shattered glass, a color that was not visible to us from a distance. We managed to avoid that hazard, but I can see where other cyclists might not see it in time.

I carry a spare tube AND a spare tire with me. Problem solved.

Darcy