Reply #15: Just popped a tube last week

[gratuitous]

First time in several months, though. It's the little cast-off wires from steel-belted tires that puncture my tires, even fully-inflated skinny road tires.

And while the hinterlands of Portland don't feature any goatheads and very few spiny plants, there are enough prickly drivers motoring around. Although I have to say that I haven't encountered too many of them and I ride very defensively, but any brush with death tends to stay with you, even it if hasn't happened for a while.