Plastic rim strip issue?

Had a weird problem end of
Had a weird problem end of last summer, on the Getting to Work bike, 26inch latex tubed, while the Rohloff was getting seals replaced, and on multiple occasions i got back to the bike after work to find i had a flat tyre.
Every time the failure just off the valve, in line with the tape, Mavic tape on Crossrides, might have also happened at home in the morning, but as that’s far less traumatic, I don’t seem to remember. At least 3 times at work, both front and rear, causing me to miss a train too, but pleasant weather, maybe a little too warm. Spare tube and no sharps so easy enough.
Spent an evening or two putting preventative patches where the failures were occurring.
That put a stop to it, odd though that in a previous winter, same tubes, rims and tape, slightly different Contis, but for many months it had never happened. Just that weird late summer.

Sounds odd to me – I’d doubt

Sounds odd to me – I’d doubt that the plastic rim strip would cause a puncture. I’d guess it’s more likely to be some fragment of metal or glass that’s somehow got in.

As I’m on here, I think I’ll share my unfortunate fettling episode this morning. I figured I’d put some air in the rear tyre and check that the sealant level and then lower my saddle about 5mm to see what kind of difference that makes (after seeing that article about bike fitting).

So, happily removed the valve core and shoved in the sealant syringe and found that it was virtually dry, so put in 40ml and inflated it and saw that a previous puncture opened up again, so I left it with the puncture in the 6 o’clock position in the hope that it would seal again.

Meanwhile, I figured I’d check the front wheel sealant level. Removed the valve core and annoyingly, the plastic extension piece (I’m running 60mm deep rims and MilkIt valves that have a rubber seal on the bit inside the tyre) got stuck in the valve. No problem – just unseat one side of the tyre and get to the bottom of the valve and push out the plastic bit. Reseated the tyre and inflated no problem.

Meanwhile, my rear tyre had leaked out almost all the new sealant that I’d put in, so removed the valve core again and this time, the plastic extension piece got stuck. Swore a bit and then did the same thing as with the front – reseated, refilled and reinflated. Put the wheel back on the bike and that’s when I noticed that the freewheel hub was completely knackered – unless you want a rear wheel freewheeling both directions.

Luckily, I’ve got my previous rear wheel still lying around and waiting for me to replace a spoke that I’ve never got around to. So, took off the freehub and moved it onto my current rear wheel (they’re both made by Prime, so I was confident that it would fit). Put the wheel back on and then realised that the puncture just wasn’t sealing, so after failing to find a pack of anchovies that must be around somewhere, I thought screw-it and just put a new tyre on instead.

(I did lower my saddle a bit – I’ll try it out tomorrow)