Inner Tube and Tape

bilbo.baggins

I suffered a pretty scary blow out this weekend. So loud it temporarily deafened me, left a 3" hole in my inner tube, and blew my tyre over the rim. I think I was pretty lucky not to come off as it was my front and I was kicking 30mph+ on a descent.

I don't run my tyre's ridiculously hard (about 100/110psi) but this was during a long sportive (80 mile into WRC) with lots of hard breaking on steep descents on a hottish day so possibly the pressure built up with breaking heat.

Anyways, I'm now looking to get new tubes and maybe tape so I've 3 Q's I'm hoping for some help on.

- any good recommendations for tubes? Currently I use standard Specialized tubes 700x20-28
- rim tape. My wheels (Ksyrium Elite) came lightly taped. Should I replace this and would it help reduce this occurrence
- is there anything else that could have caused the blow-out apart from heat? I've check the tyre and rim for offending items but nothing

Thanks

huggy

I've had a strange 'no reason' puncture under the tube with specialized tubes, so I use michelin now.

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

Had you recently re-fitted the tyre? This sort of blow out is often caused by nipping a bit of the inner tube under the tyre bead when fitting the tyre.

It's a good idea to check all the way round both beads by partially inflating the tyre, then pushing the bead a section at time in towards the centre of the tyre and visually checking that there is no tube caught underneath it.

Apologies if you know all this already - I don't mean to condescend!

Cheers, Andy

bilbo.baggins

andrewgturnbull wrote:

Hi there.

Had you recently re-fitted the tyre? This sort of blow out is often caused by nipping a bit of the inner tube under the tyre bead when fitting the tyre.

It's a good idea to check all the way round both beads by partially inflating the tyre, then pushing the bead a section at time in towards the centre of the tyre and visually checking that there is no tube caught underneath it.

Apologies if you know all this already - I don't mean to condescend!

Cheers, Andy

Hi Andy, no I've not refitted the tyre recently and I'm always pretty careful to check it's not being nipped although I guess it is just possible I missed it. Not sure if it's coincidence but it blew close to, but not at, the valve and I'm terrible for not putting on the screw thing that pulls the valve through the rim (I just rely on the tyre pressure) - however the valve was sitting perfectly perpendicular to the rim.

No need for the apologies - it's impossible to know peoples level of competence

dennisn

bilbo.baggins wrote:

andrewgturnbull wrote:

Hi there.

Had you recently re-fitted the tyre? This sort of blow out is often caused by nipping a bit of the inner tube under the tyre bead when fitting the tyre.

It's a good idea to check all the way round both beads by partially inflating the tyre, then pushing the bead a section at time in towards the centre of the tyre and visually checking that there is no tube caught underneath it.

Apologies if you know all this already - I don't mean to condescend!

Cheers, Andy

Hi Andy, no I've not refitted the tyre recently and I'm always pretty careful to check it's not being nipped although I guess it is just possible I missed it. Not sure if it's coincidence but it blew close to, but not at, the valve and I'm terrible for not putting on the screw thing that pulls the valve through the rim (I just rely on the tyre pressure) - however the valve was sitting perfectly perpendicular to the rim.

No need for the apologies - it's impossible to know peoples level of competence

Had you let all the air out of it recently?? I ask because if you had(and some people do,
on a daily basis) it's possible that the tire bead could have come slightly unseated when
and or if you did this. Just a thought.

Dennis Noward