seeing many wheel and bike changes on tv broadcasts of pro road races lately I have been wondering if there is some statistics or educated knowledge about how the number of punctures in pro races has changed in recent years and decades.
AI does not know (of course).
there is so much talk about how tire technology has advanced, tubeless is widely or exclusively used, wider tires not only offer more comfort and no heat from braking on rims - but still punctures all over the place (it might just be a feeling).
pro races would be a great testing ground for the question whether tires are better and all the advances lead to less punctures as the external factors (road surfaces, mostly same roads again and again, weather, time) are mostly stable and comparable over the last decades (i would assume).
does anyone know anything? has anyone heard anything? has anyone counted anything?
finding this a very interesting question. But no clue on answers. Personally riding a setup the pros never did I think. They went from tubulars to tubeless. I use latex tubes in a 2018 GP 5000. Had quite a few punctures when riding the GP 5000 S TR tubeless; with the OG GP 5000 and latex tubes none in thousands of kilometres and saving quite some cash on the tire compared to the S TR
Teams may be riding prototype tires/wheels, unbadged or rebadged tires and/or wheels which may not (yet) be available outside of special service courses. So maybe these data are unimportant?
Mechanics, technical advisors, and some riders may be using non-standard tire/wheel combos, or running tires outside of recommended (by respective manufacturers’) recommendations for pressures, etc.
So there’s not much “control”; just lots of exceptions.
And this was the norm for tubulars, then clinchers, and now tubeless, eh?
But just a count of how many flats during the TdF today vs 30 yrs ago vs 60 years ago… I’m sure a straight out count could be made. If teams own up to the data…
I believe that Mavic used to keep track of flats (or wheel changes) that they dealt with in the past, but not sure where to find that data. Not sure if anybody currently keeps track of it.
Even if there is a difference either way, punctures are punctures - the tyre setup may not even be the reason.
Example: When I moved to Sydney I was running tubulars. I was told I was mad because the road sweeping trucks had moved from plastic brushes to metal brushes for more effective road sweeping, and there had been a subsequent rise in punctures as shards of metal found their way into road bike tyres.
I don’t think it’s pinch flats. The peloton are almost all on tubeless where you don’t get pinch flats. It’s more likely down to using thin txt tyres which are less protected.
I know nearly every pro is now riding on TT tires, not regular TLR or TL and those lose a layer of puncture protection but are lower rolling resistance and seem.to be worth the risk.
I wouldn’t assume that sealant would eliminate the puncture risk, just reduce it. Larger punctures won’t seal, TT would be more prone to large punctures, and I doubt pros carry even mini plug tool. At those speeds, plugging wouldn’t make sense because they’d have lost pressure too, so best to just wait a minute for team car for full swap.
Personally I’d never ride TT tires and run the puncture risk because I hate stopping and there’s no team car following me. With the pros chasing even the smallest gains - only carrying one bottle? - running that risk makes sense
AFAIK, none of the teams run more than just a super thin coating of sealant to achieve a proper bead seal. Certainly not enough to actually seal a proper puncture.
@David_Braddon-Mitchell1
I am not sure about it either, but it’s often mentioned that hitting potholes with 50kph leads to lots of punctures. Same goes for cobbles in the spring. We had a huge discussion about it on discord after roubaix.
I often wonder about the trade offs, because teams could just ride higher pressures and have less flats but apparently that’s not how it works for them.
I think most of us would consider one flat in 1000k ridden to be annoying, but acceptable, especially if we were riding the latest lightweight wonder tyre. One flat every 3000k would be yeah, OK, that’s lasted very well. One flat every 10000k would be wow, that’s an amazing result.
If this happened in the TDF the first would be a flat in the peloton roughly every 5.5 k, the second would be a flat every ~17 k and the last a flat every ~55k.
This is an interesting way to look at relative punctures.
200 riders x 180km stage average = 36,000km per stage.
At the acceptable km/puncture rate of 1/1000 that would be 36 punctures per stage. I don’t think it’s that many on each stage so their puncture rate is better than acceptable.
Obviously many other factors aren’t considered like swept roads, less sealant, etc, but I fully believe there are less punctures with tubeless.
Whether you can or want to deal with a puncture on tubeless is another matter.
With tubes or tubulars, every puncture will ALWAYS lead to a totally flat, unrideable tire. When that happens, you might not be near any support vehicles, you might have to let a dangerous move go, etc.
With tubeless, a puncture often seals and you can keep riding indefinitely until you have a more convenient moment to stop and fix it.
I would guess modern tubeless tire setups take riskier approaches to puncture protection because the punctures are more “survivable”.
I think the best comparison of older tires to newer tubeless setups isn’t as simple as frequency of punctures then and now. The more accurate comparison would be more like total minutes of delay due to punctures then and now.
If we REALLY wanted the truth, we’d randomly assign pros to ride tubeless or tubular for one entire season and look at the average results of each cohort.
Agree with above post that the teams likely use a bare minimum amount of sealant vs the specified amount on the bottle vs the little bit more a lot of use likely use.
Also consider the severity of a flat in the TdF. The vast majority of the flats are fixed in a short time and the rider catches back on with minimal impact on the race. Considering the upside can be substantial reduction in rolling resistance, the teams are going to prioritize speed over a few extra punctures.
