New to road bicycling and my tyre popped on me,is that norm?

wildthyme

I fitted a slime gel tyre (the ones that are supposed to heal themselves if they get a puncture) on my rear tyre and all was okay for a week or so. But one day i rode it out my house and off a ledge onto my drive and when i the rear tyre landed on the drive it went pop. All the air completely gone. The ledge I came off was not more than 3 inches tall. Is this normal can road bike tyres not handle this sort of thing? Or is it likely that the inner tube was not fitted properly? Any help apprceiated, i've already gone through 2 of these inner tubes one i broke putting it on.

nochekmate

Stick to your MTB for jumps!!

owenlars

Did the inner tube have two holes in it? If so you probably had too low an air pressure in the tyre. With road bikes it is important to keep the correct pressure to avoid snake bite punctures caused by the inner tube being compressed against the rim.

rhext

owenlars wrote:

Did the inner tube have two holes in it? If so you probably had too low an air pressure in the tyre. With road bikes it is important to keep the correct pressure to avoid snake bite punctures caused by the inner tube being compressed against the rim.

+1, sounds like what would be called a pinch flat in the Mountain Bike world. Two things to check -

1) When you fit the tyre, it's worth doing a final check round the rim to make sure you've not got the inner tube caught underneath the tyre anywhere.

2) Make sure you've got enough air in it. I put 80PSI in my road tyres, but a lot of people will be running theirs even higher than that. If you've not got a pressure guage, they should feel absolutely rock hard and you should be struggling to force any more air into them with a hand pump.

Road bike tyres are perfectly capable of bumping up and down kerbs, but only if they're properly inflated.

CiB

80psi is a bit soft; go to about 100 to reduce snake bites. Why did yours pop? No idea but you may have landed on a sharp stone, the tube may have been peeking out between rim & tyre, a sniper may have been trying to pick you off and missed his target. When you fit a tyre, inflate it enough for the tube to fill the tyre then spin the wheel up in front of your face and eyeball both sides to make sure the tyre is evenly & properly seated round the rim. Then fully inflate it and check it again.

cougie

My bet is you trapped the inner tube when you fitted it. I'd not have thought you would have flatted unless you're really heavy and sit in the saddle like a sack of spuds and had a low pressure in it.

Fr Howie

Lots of good wisdom above. Only other suggestion is that the rim tape has given way or shifted putting the tube in contact with the sharp (ish) metal edges of the rim.

Monty Dog

Learn how to 'unweight' your wheel when going over any form of obstacle, be it a kerb, pothole or anything in the road. If you hit any firm edge square-on it'll likely end in a puncture - wider tyres i.e. bigger volume can help reduce the risk of a pinch-flat or 'snakebite' puncture. Select a tyre pressure to suit your weight/tyre size/riding condition - the number on the side of the tyre is the recommended maximum.

Gizmodo

As you can see from this YouTube video, road bikes aren't capable of dropping off 3 inch curbs, they aro too thin and flimsy. :roll: