Last month, for the first time in thousands of KM, I got a flat tire.
It was fixed (replaced tube) and I’ve happily ridden another 400km since.
But I ride at nearly max pressure for the tires, because I assume this was caused by a pinch flat. At the time this flat happened, I was not running low pressure, but lower pressure than I am now (50psi vs 60psi, perhaps), and it happened on a very low speed ride on a smooth trail… no hard hits.
This was a new tube that I installed about 350km earlier, so maybe “user error.”
But can someone tell me what might have actually been the cause of that type of flat?
Oh, yeah if you’d need new wheels then it’s probably not worth it. I just got a new bike a few months ago (Cannondale Habit 4), and it came tubeless ready, so I had the shop set me up tubeless. It’s pretty rad because I can lower the tire pressure pretty low for slippery stuff and not worry about pinching a tube. It’s also a little lighter, although that doesn’t matter much considering what a FS mountain bike weighs these days. Welp, good luck avoiding flats in the future! I still say that looks like it might be a tube defect. If you have the time then it might be worth taking it back to where you bought it and asking for a replacement.