How to Avoid Flat Tires?

As a cycling enthusiast, riding your beloved bike through the mountains is a great joy in life. It’s 21^st century but flat tires are still there. How disappointing it is! As one of the most important parts of electric bicycles, the condition of the tire must be the main factor affecting the riding experience. Flat tires bring you frustration, may even cause safety hazards. Today’s Himi class will teach you how to avoid tire leaks. Let’s learn together.

1) Final Check Before Starting the Bicycle Trip

Before you start to ride, please carefully check the surface of your bicycle tires, and clean the glass slag, small stones, and other hard and sharp objects on the tires in time to avoid puncturing the tires during riding. In addition, check whether the tires are seriously worn. Smooth tires may cause safety accidents. If the tires are worn out, you need to bring a spare tire and some tools to deal with the situation that the tire cannot be repaired. Of course, we also considered these issues when manufacturing bicycles.

2) Pay Attention to the Tire Pressure

Bicycle lovers know that different brands and models of tires have different tire pressure ranges, and tire pressure determines the comfort of riding. Usually you can find the data on the side of the tire. For example, the Kenda fat tire selected by Himiway has a tire pressure range of 5~30PSI, and the best tire pressure is 20~30PSI. Anything lower or higher than this range is harmful to the tire.

How can we check the tire pressure? Under normal circumstances, you can roughly detect by squeezing by hand, and you can quickly determine whether the tire needs to be pumped up. Of course, if you think that this is not accurate enough, you can choose a pressure gauge, which can accurately read the tire pressure.

Remember, a good gauge is strongly suggested if you are riding a mountain bike.

3)Go With Tubeless Tires Or Not

Lots of people strongly recommend tubeless tires especially on mountain bikes. But before you really choose it, you need to know that there are two types of tires: inner tubes and tubeless tires. Each has pros&cons. Tubeless tires have good heat dissipation and flexibility, but they cannot be overloaded or pull heavy objects, and the sides of the tire are very fragile, because most of them are not heavy-duty tires. On the contrary, a tire with an inner tube is capable with heavy stuff easily. Inner tubes can increase the air pressure to bear the weight. On this point, we chose tires with inner tube for the weight of a beast. However, the most annoying disadvantage of inner tubes is that once it is punctured, it will quickly leak. You can do nothing but change another inner tube.

Going with tubeless tires is definitely a great choice but sometimes you need to make everything under your consideration. 

4) Use Sealant to Protect the Tire

For safety reasons, you should consider buying a sealant. When sharp objects such as stones, glass, tree branches, etc. accidentally puncture the tire, the sealant inside will gather to block the puncture and reduce air leakage.

We recommend Slime 10004 inner tube repair sealant (bicycle, off-road vehicle) for all with inner tube, which is known for its good performance. Just squeeze the liquid in the bottle into the tire through the bicycle valve core, which is very easy to use. If you are the owner of Himiway, you’d better try it.

Of course, the sealant is also a plus to tubeless. Remember to check if it’s for tubeless or inner tube when you purchase it.

5）Rim Tape Is Useful

It’s not just sharps from the outside, the rim itself will cause flats, too. The rim is made by metal and it’s as hard as you can imagine. Edges, valve holes, and spoke holes are the risky part. Those parts are rough rather than being smooth.

If you disassemble the tires (or inner tubes), and stick some smooth tapes on the bed of your rim, it would greatly reduce the possibility to get flats.

We have to tell you it’s useful no matter you have road tires, fat tires, tubeless or inner tubes.

6) Choose New Tires

When the pattern on the tire surface becomes very shallow or even smooth, you should consider replacing it with a new tire. Also, it’s easier to get flats if the robber goes older and not flexible enough. At this point, tires need to be updated. When choosing a new tire, you're supposed to consider the following factors:

1. size

Be sure to choose a tire that fits your bicycle.

2. Pattern

A good bicycle tire should have a strong grip and traction, and complex patterns are the source of both.

3. Puncture resistance

The anti-puncture function is an important factor to measure the superior quality of tires.

7) Daily Maintenance

Pay attention to the following points in daily care to help extend the service life of tires.

1. The amount of inflation should be appropriate, too much or too little is not recommended

2. Frequent cleaning, which can reduce the damage caused by debris to the tire

3. Avoid being corroded, stay away from oil, acid, and other flammable materials and chemicals, and avoid being exposed to direct sunlight for a long time

4. Don't be overweight, don't exceed the maximum capacity of the bicycle

5. Be careful when changing tires. The process of changing tires is easy to cause damage to the inner and outer tires. Therefore, it is better to use a tire lever instead of just finding something to change the tire. The inner tube must be flat when installing.

Of course, you should avoid hard objects while riding and take a bump with you. Always check your tires when cleaning up debris.

We hope it will be helpful to everyone’s riding. Please remember the principle of safety first and protect yourself and your family so that you can have more pleasant journeys with your Himiway in the future.