Letters

PUNCTURES

The interesting Tech Talk on tyres in the May issue (MSL 704) has finally prompted me to write in on something that has been costly, time consuming and annoying me for a couple of decades now!

When I was a baby biker and the norm was to have tubed tyres, I hardly ever got a puncture. In 1996 I got my first bike fitted with tubeless tyres, a BMW R1100RT. I was on my seventh rear tyre before I replaced it without a puncture, the first six all getting a puncture at some point during their service life. I have continued since then along the same vain. I cover around 15,000 miles a year on two bikes running tubeless tyres, averaging one or two punctures a year. Mostly the punctures are to the rear tyre, but not always. This year has started well as I have just had my second puncture by the beginning of April. Now