Tire Question - tired of getting flats...

Yes, you can have different tires on the front and the back, but if the Vittorias are as bad as you say it's more a matter of when they will cause you trouble than if.

Love my Michelin Pro2 Races for training and racing, great flat resistance and very low rolling resistance. Not sure about the cornering but I've never had problems and I'm nearing 15K miles of experience on them.

Edit to say that 15K miles is on four sets. I get over 5K per set.

Stupid question, but have you ever run over glass with the michelin Pro2's?  Where I ride on Long Island, no matter what I do I am going to hit glass now and again. 

I have this silly phobia now with a Sprint, 2 Olympics and a HIM coming up of flatting. 

Will my gator skin ultras slow me down that much over a Michelin Pro2?? 

Can you tell I've only been biking since December 06!!

If they roll fast and are puncture resistant, I'll check 'em out for sure.  Thanks.

I ride in south Louisiana, litter capital of the world. I swear they have world championship competitions involving the tossing of beer bottles out of cars onto the roads where I ride.

So, yeay, I'm always in the glass with my P2Rs.

Actually, the last month I've been riding 25mm gator skins on my road bike and I really can't tell the difference. But that's not under race conditions.

Have you taken off your tire and searched for the glass shards etc. that's going through them?

1.  I was flatting like crazy on Vittoria Zaffiros and it turned out my rim tape loooked like a two year old put it on.  Haven't flatted for about nine months on those and just moved up to the Rubino Pros and they seem pretty resistent.

2.  I keep flatting on some kind of Bontragers on my old bike.  Couldn't figure it out until I finally felt something sharp in the tire.  Turns out I had a metal shard stuck in there that popped every stinking tube.  Once it was out I never had any more issues.

Check the tape, check the tires for debris, try them some more.... then if they still are terrible, chunk and lay out the money for some new tires.

Although, I too haven't heard good things about that particular tire. 

First you're making the right choice getting off The Island on Thursday and riding Harriman. No glass but plenty of hills, Only your legs will flat

2nd - I think it's just mostly bad luck. I had the same issues early on. Lots of flats. I swithed from the PR2's to Conti 4000's and flatted often. I don't think it was really the Cont'is just bad luck. That being said, I'll never use them again. Went back to the PR2's and all is well. I'll get the 3's next time prolly. FWIW I only train them as I have race wheels. Tubular of course

That's a   long way of saying, keep riding it all evens out. Or move off Long Island  

Continental Gatorskins - I swear by them.  Since I've had them (going on a year now), I've had exactly 1 flat.  It might be just really, really good luck, but I'm inclined to believe the thin kevlar strip inside the tire is helping.

http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?category=&subcategory=&brand=&sku=1632&storetype=&estoreid=&pagename=Show%20All%20Products

My only complaint about the ones linked above is the wire bead - takes a little getting used to if you're not handy with flats.  I'm pretty sure you can get them in a folding bead though.

I agree--I had two flats in as many days, and lo and behold, I needed new rim tape.

Hi everyone.  Thanks for all the responses.  The rim tape is perfect.  I also checked for any debris, glass shards, etc... inside the tire itself -- and it's clean.  This flat was from a teeny weeny shard of glass that had pierced the tire and then the tube.  Prior to that I was pinch-flatting because I didn't have a enough PSI pressure in my tire. 

I swapped out my back tire for a Continental Ultra Gatorskin and took it for a ride just before.  The handling and especially the cornering is unbelievable by comparison to the Vittoria Diamante's... but all the positive differences end there.  When I put the hammer down I can feel the back tire pulling.  Ugh.  But hey, it'll make a nice training tire.  I look at it like my running shoes.  The gatorskins are my trainers, and my race wheels (yet to be purchased) are my racing flats.  Although I'm hesistant to even use that word.

Does anyone know of any bomb-proof racing tires?  Or is that an oxymoron?  I'm assuming they probably really don't exist, and I'm just going to probably go with yellow (to match my bike) Michelin Pro2's for my Olympic and HIM and just pray I don't flat.  And hope that on race days I'll mostly be riding in the middle of roads and not on the shoulder, which is usually littered with glass.