Rear Wheel Punctures

[CyberKnight]

lucky for those who rarely get punctures i get at least 6 a year ! , my commute has a section of shred cyclepath i have to use to avoid a 4 lane roundabout thats dangerous enough in a vehicle let alone a bike ,Anyway said path is littered with glass, debris from lorries, gravel etc etc .
Last week there was even a dead rat

[foxyrider]

Whilst i agree that most deflations i get are in the rear the last 'real' puncture i had, a fortnight ago, was a double, fromt and rear snake bites after hitting a lump of granite (from the adjacent railway trackbed) on the Bristol/Bath path! Conti 4000sII's at @ 100psi, no damage to the tyres and luckily not the rims either, i found the cause and it was almost square and showing damage from the first flick which placed it directly under the rear tyre path.

I find it unhelpful when someone says they haven't had issue x for y period of time, for all we know they might not have ridden the machine in that period! I do a lot of riding, some weeks over 500km, a short week will still be @ 350km, before the double episode the previous visit of the fairy was @ 6000km ago on the same bike/tyres. I can't recall the deflation previous to that, i don't get a lot, i've had a fair few tyres die without ever having a visit from she who must not be named. Given the amount of mileage i do, whilst always annoying, the odd puncture is to be expected.

I've had some bad runs though, such as when i went to Sweden 3 years ago on the Airnimal i suffered a grand total of 12 punctures, 5 on one day, spread fairly evenly front to back. I started the trip with new tyres/tubes but a stone hit severely damaged one tyre which got swapped from front to rear which then compounded the issues. I couldn't get any replacements and even a tyre boot only helped so far, in retrospect i'd made the wrong call on tyre choice for a loaded tour.

[Dingdong]

I won't tour on anything but standard width 700c tyres. 25-28mm, it's just such a faffing nightmare to find tyres outside of these dimensions, especially when you leave Western Europe for 'other places', where tyre stocks are invariably limited.

[NickJP]

My last five punctures have all been on the rear wheel. Coincidence, bad luck or is it to do with the extra weight?

Punctures caused by nails, staples, etc usually occur in the rear tyre, because the offending item is lying flat on the road until the front tyre flips it up to an orientation so that it can puncture the rear. Over the decades I've had punctures caused by nails, u-bolts, large staples, etc, and they've nearly all been in the rear tyre. I recently had a short broken length of motorcycle spoke that was flipped up in such a manner go through the rear tyre, through the rim bed, and through the inner wall of the rim between two of the spoke holes. I was able to ride home after booting the tyre, but retired it when I got home because the hole punched through it was fairly large - about ¼" diameter. The rim, rather surprisingly, remained dead true, and I'm still using it with tape over the holes in the rim wall and rim bed.

[Jupestar]

I always seem to read threads like this then suffer a spate of punctures.

That's 3 in two days and I've not cycled home yet today. (4 if you count the one I repaired and went down again after about 2 miles). 2 fronts and a the double hit on the rear.

Two different bikes, cause I couldn't be bothered to fix yesterdays mess at 11pm last night.

I've currently a max 25mm inner tube in a 38mm tire. No glue. And a 38mm tube with a hole in it..

I've just stuck a glueless patch on (as it's all I have) Its not working, I'll try another one then bin them. If I get a puncture on the way home I'm stuck.

It's been pouring down everytime, And no doubt will be later.

[mattheus]

We COULD explain it with luck/stats: if it were random, then 1 in every 32 forum users would have had the same thing happen. Either they didn't notice, or they didn't think to post about it. Or you didn't see their post.

But of course, THIS is the real reason:

It's Sod's Law. Rear wheels are more difficult to remove and replace than front wheels.