Helpful Hints from joeeze: How to prevent flat bike/motorcycle tires

Bill Babcock's tip appears in the latest edition of Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools, edited by Steven Leckart; it follows.

Prevent Flat Bike/Motorcycle Tires

Here's an easy way to flat-proof your bicycle: make a flap of stiff plastic that extends in front of the back wheel until it nearly touches the pavement. Then glue or rivet a rubber flap to the lower edge that brushes against the pavement. A bleach bottle is a particularly good source of plastic since you can gain some stiffness from curve to the neck, and depending on your bicycle design, you might even profit from the neck itself. I learned this many years ago when I was a motorcycle mechanic and discovered that perhaps 90% of all flats are on the back wheel.

The reason: the front wheel stands the object up, the back wheel runs into it. All the flap does is knock the object back down, and that's all that's necessary. I put one of these on my motorcycles and have never again had a flat in more than 30 years and hundreds of thousands of miles of riding. I put them on my bicycles too, and never have flats.