Do you check your tyres for debris?

[midliferider]

Daily but only during touring when I try to minimise all risks as much as possible. At home, never.

 

[rogerzilla]

There's a school of thought that the first wheel rotation embeds debris as deeply as it will ever go.

Having said that, things like tacks can cause punctures without instant deflation, plugging the hole. You want to find those before the next 50mph downhill.

 

[Sharky]

before the next 50mph downhill.

I've got a few years then before that's going to happen.

 

[Glow worm]

I ticked monthly but it’s weekly for me. It’s my Sunday evening job, (along with cleaning/ lubing chain and topping up tyre pressure). And yes I am no fun at parties!

it’s pretty ‘flinty’ around here and I ride a lot of farm tracks/ bridleways etc. I’m often amazed at the size of some of the sharp things I’ve pulled out of my Schwalbe Marathon Pluses without puncturing

 

[presta]

The author sent a time digging out every flint and bit of glass etc. religiously, then an equal time in roughly similar conditions ignoring them all. The conclusion in that case was it made no discernible difference to the rate/number of punctures.

I think I could find dozens of bits of grit in the tyres any time I care to check, but since I rarely get punctures they clearly aren't much of a problem. I think it would be easy to spend more time picking grit than mending punctures.

It makes me cringe every time I see someone changing a tube with the bike upside down on its saddle and bars,

Mine rests on the saddle and tips of the brake hood horns without scuffing, but I always put it down carefully. Rubber and padded objects don't scratch easily, that's why they're used to protect the sort of surfaces that do. My preferred method of parking is leaned against a wall with four points of contact: bars, saddle & wheels, because it protects the paintwork. The only reason I've ever replaced brake hoods was because the rubber started to liquefy, and turn into a sticky goo.

(I re-made my map holder once, then realised it was stopping me from turning the bike over, so I re-made it again. My lamp is mounted under the bars, not on top, for the same reason.)

 

[andrew_s]

I hardly ever check.

In fact, I'll sometimes leave a thorn in place deliberately, cutting off any attached twig, on the grounds that it may plug the hole it's made well enough to get home with only a couple of pumping sessions (which take about a minute; a fair bit quicker than a roadside tube change). If the first pump doesn't last at least 15 minutes, I'll change tubes at the 2nd stop.

Some time late February/early March, I picked up a thorn, but didn't notice until I found that my rear tyre needed pumping every 2 days or so. After 3 or 4 weeks, I inspected the tyre from the outside fairly closely, but didn't find anything, so I just carried on pumping before most rides until it came to time to swap the winter tyres for summer tyres, at which point the thorn revealed itself from the inside. I still couldn't see it on the ouside of the tyre, even knowing where it was.