Re: Very Slow Leaks.

cyclintom <cyclintom@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Tue May 6 06:09:07 2025 Roger Merriman  wrote:

cyclintom <cyclintom@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mon May 5 18:28:41 2025 Roger Merriman  wrote:

cyclintom <cyclintom@yahoo.com> wrote:

I have very good tires on the BMC. (Gatorskins) But it has continuous
problems with slow leaks appearing first in one tire and then the other.
The wheels are Campagnolo Sirocco so it is unlikely that there are
imperfections in the rims and I use Specialized tubes whenever I can get
the proper size. And yet, when I leave the bike sitting for a month or so
one or the other of the tires is nearly fully pumped up and the other completely flat.
 
Anyone have any suggestions?
 

 
What are the punctures can you see any holes? Gatorskins are tough but not
impervious, could be the value be that a fault or just user error ie isn?t
fully closed and so on.

 
 
 
 
They look like hair thin wire punctures bot there are usually no trace of
a wire in the tire inside or out. To even find them you have to pump the
tube way up and put it under water and look for a very slow leak which
mafes it almost impossible to patch. So I have to replace the innertube.
 

As long as you can find the hole or the area the patch should be fine, it?s
not like tubeless where you need to push the plug in and so on!
 
If it is just small wires then it?s absolutely the sort of thing that
Tubeless is good at! Even if it?s in my naughty books at moment, as I
unwisely fitted a far to lightweight rear tyre which has punctured fairly
dramatically twice in other a week, great in the front but way too fragile
for the rear!
 
So back to the tyres I?ve been running for almost 10 years!

 
 
 
 
Many of these leaks are so slow that they are only a bubble every second.
Once located I use a marking pen to make an X but the glue lifts that off
and I end up putting the patch in the wrong spot.
 

Yes that’s a slow leak! Which is I’d assume the most common, for all folks,
certainly for myself just occasionally might get a pinch flat and a rather
larger hole or rather two rips which I generally took to be new tube day.

But for myself my tubed bikes tend to have punctures so infrequently that
the tube is old/and or valve is going.

Roger Merriman