Flats happen and are inevitable, but they should be a rare occurence. As a daily bike commuter and road bike enthusiast I experienced 2 flats in the last 10 years.
Futhermore most maintenance tasks are quite easy to handle and Youtube has excellent tutorials ready. I understand that this isn't for everyone (I'm not interested in learning how to repair my car for instance), but channels like GCN [1] explain a range of basic maintenance taks for anyone who's interested.
I also think your expectations towards bike prices are somewhat unreasonable. Maintenance is required at any price category, but generally 1000 € bikes will give you a decent entry level experience with quality parts that should last for years. Lower priced options will have to cut corners and cause frustations at some point.
What you need is a 'commuter bike' with an aluminium frame, Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub gear and Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. Should cost less than $500.
You'll need to pump up the tyres every 3 months, and have a bike shop service it every 2000 miles or so. But I've been riding this configuration twice a day for 5 years and had maybe 3 punctures in that time and no problems more severe than that.
Those old caliper brakes need constant replacement, constant adjustment, replacing them requires even more calibration, and tiniest little wobble in your wheel or dent in your rim will make the brake very erratic and wear quickly. I get bad shivers down my spine every time i see such brakes, knowing how much time and frustration I've wasted on maintaining them in the past.
Quality of bike components have gone up past decades so don't be hung up on old experiences. Build quality matters a lot so make sure to get a reputable brand also, not something from the corner of the hardware store, doesn't have to be their top of the line model though, something like 400-800€ should give you a good one.
Reinforcement in forms of kevlar and such might provide some additional protection but these types of penetrating punctures are rare in the first place. It obviously doesn't make things worse so for peace of mind and some extra protection could still be worth it anyway. Just the fact that these are high quality tires to begin with will help a lot.
When I go to use one of our cars and it doesn't work, or something goes wrong while I'm driving, that's very surprising. When we try to use one of our bikes and it's broken, or it breaks while riding, that's just... how bicycles are, I guess. Been that way since I rode (and constantly fixed) bikes as a kid. Was that way when I commuted on one for a while. They're just so very damned unreliable and fiddly.
It really shouldn't take longer than 3-5 minutes.
- .5 min: flipping the bike
- 1 min: finding the tools
- 1 min: removing the wheel and chain
- 3 min: removing the tire
- 1 min: removing the tube
- 2 min: locating the hole
- 1 min: cleaning the tube
- 5 min: applying glue and letting it dry
- 3 min: installing the patch and holding it just to make sure
- 2 min: putting back the tube
- 1 min: putting back the tire
- 5 min: putting back the wheel and making sure it doesn't touch any thing
- 1 min: inflating
- .5 min: flipping the bike back up
Total estimated time: 27 min
Actual time I take: ~60 min
(For example, it should not take 5 minutes to replace a wheel. That should take about 10 seconds... I am genuinely curious what you spend your time doing over the 5 minutes and I am sure some practice / instruction could save you frustration. Likewise, even for a very tight tire you should be able to remove it quite quickly. A small tip I can give you for removing a tire is to make sure that the entire bead of the tire is unseated and sitting in the deepest part of the rim. This leaves a good amount of slack to pull the tire off. I usually am able to remove a tire without any tools, but a tire lever can make it even easier when used correctly.)
Certainly patching a tube adds to the time, I didn't include that in my 3-5min estimate. The usual practice is to pack an extra tube while out on a ride and patch the damaged tube later at home. Also worth noting there are modern patches that come with adhesive pre-applied that are very easy & quick to use, just peel and stick.
Cheers and good luck!
Regarding tire removal, I recently did it like three times in a single week. It was like 15 minutes in sweat and finger pain every time. To get an idea of what one can achieve, can you remove a tire without tools with fat tires only or even thin road tires? Mine were thin, 23mm (less than an inch). By the way, in this instance, it wasn't a beater but a high-end 1970s bike.
Thanks for the advice, I'll look into it because it sounds like I'm missing something.
How difficult it is to remove or replace a tire really comes down to the tire/rim combinations. Different types and sizes of tires can make a big difference.
Some combinations can definitely be trickier to mount, but with the right it can usually be down without too much physical strain. Mechanics in the bike shop do it many, many times each day after all.
Give me a bike that doesn't break all the time or at least makes it super-easy and super-fast to fix any parts that do, and doesn't cost like $1,000 (why the actual hell should a decent one cost 1/20th as much as a lower-end car?! Think about what goes into both! How does that make any sense? 1/100 seems more reasonable, and for one that does not suck just like the $20,000 car probably does not suck remotely the same way a low-end bike does or it'd get lemon law'd away) and I'll go back to bike riding.