Cleaning my bike this afternoon, I was SHOCKED at the number of small chips I dug out of my tires. They become very visible if you wipe your tire down with a wet cloth. I had put on a brand new set of Continental Ultra-Race with Kevlar belt before the race. I threw them away this afternoon. I wouldn’t want any ST’er to have a flat (or worse) on their next ride.
Just finished unpacking from the trip (got home late last night). Inspected front tire for the first time since flatting 3 miles from T2 (rode it in). No damage to the rim. Tire looks OK (ProRace3). Flat caused by one of those chips that cut into the rubber. Rear tire had cuts but held which I credit to running the Vittoria Pit Stop. Wish I had put it into front as flat may have cost me 2nd place. Another lesson learned the hard way ;(
Before I go on, let me say I really like this bike course. It is challenging and if you over commit on the bike you are in trouble for the run. This was year two for me and last year’s race only had the usual number of flats. After this year’s (2011) race, many of us were talking about the number of flats and the fact it happened to everyone from experienced triathletes with nice wheels and to new triathletes with older bikes. I personally didn’t get a flat. I raced Victoria Corsa EVO CS tubulars at 105 PSI trying to account for the looming rain. After seeing this post, I went and checked my tires. I didn’t have a bunch of nicks, but I did pull two flints from the front tire and one from the rear tire. They are easy to spot after you wipe the tires as suggested. I’m sure the flints were from the rain draining across the highway. Anyway thanks for the post, one of the three shards I pulled out was surely going to flat me in the future.
biehlwh
Should have checked mine more thoroughly. The stone chip in my tire happened to be the exact same color white as my tire and did not stick thru enough to feel it from the inside, and only caused such a small leak that I didn’t find it until the second tube went flat during a ride a couple days ago. Just glad it didn’t go completely flat on me during the race!
After reading a few replies, I started to wonder if the flint (or chert) slivers were a common occurrence, or just a Missouri thing. From the
Missouri Conservationist
Common as Dirt
Some kinds of rocks are hard to get to know personally. Not so with chert.** If your tire has ever been punctured by a chert sliver on an Ozark road**, or if your air mattress has ever gone flat while camping on a gravel bar, you know what I mean.
Chert, also known as flint, is one of the most abundant rocks in Missouri, and is composed of one of the most common minerals on earth. In fact, in much of Missouri you could say that chert is “common as dirt.”
Chert is a hard, fine-grained rock made up mostly of the mineral silica (SiO2). Silica itself contains the elements silicon and oxygen, two of the most abundant elements on earth. Silica is also the main ingredient in glass, obsidian, quartz, many kinds of sand and computer chips. It is a lesser component of numerous other rocks and minerals. Chert and flint are generic names for this siliceous rock, which comes in many colors and patterns.
Although chert usually is not thought of as a valuable mineral resource, chert gravel is used for surfacing roads in counties where the gravel is readily available. The chert is mined from deposits along the streams, providing an inexpensive source of road gravel.