First Ride - Front Tire Explosion

[AHicks]

There is a lot of "it could never happen to me" out there. In some ways I feel like society is built around conditioning us for that with the whole "blame the victim" mentality whenever something bad happens to "other people."It's part of maintaining the illusion that it couldn't happen.

"Because I'm a good rider", "because I pay attention", "because I spent the first 20+ years of my life riding without a helmet". Simple fact is bad things could happen to any of us at any time. That's a harsh truth that's hard for many people to face.

So as Carlin would say, we BS ourselves.

Sorry, but there's no BS involved knowing the tire needs to be centered on the rim any time the bead has been broken. There's nothing in the design intended to avoid that. If you're talking automotive tires, they're heavier and designed to run at much higher speeds. Because of that. the bead of the tire has been built so heavily, trying to change them without a machine is something I prefer to avoid. A bike tire isn't like that. You can change most just using your fingers.....

If you install a tire without confirming the tire is centered on the rim, and safely inflate it without checking, you're running on borrowed time. Sooner or later, that oversight is going to bite you - just like it did our OP's girlfriend....

 

[Gionnirocket]

Sorry, but there's no BS involved knowing the tire needs to be centered on the rim any time the bead has been broken. There's nothing in the design intended to avoid that. If you're talking automotive tires, they're heavier and designed to run at much higher speeds. Because of that. the bead of the tire has been built so heavily, trying to change them without a machine is something I prefer to avoid. A bike tire isn't like that. You can change most just using your fingers.....

If you install a tire without confirming the tire is centered on the rim, and safely inflate it without checking, you're running on borrowed time. Sooner or later, that oversight is going to bite you - just like it did our OP's girlfriend....

A little soapy water on the bead as you slowly inflate will pretty much guarantee that the bead seats evenly all the way around on both sides

 

[AHicks]

A little soapy water on the bead as you slowly inflate will pretty much guarantee that the bead seats evenly all the way around on both sides

Call me paranoid I guess (one too many exploded tubes). I would STILL confirm!!!

 

[Gionnirocket]

Call me paranoid I guess (one too many exploded tubes). I would STILL confirm!!!

I'm not saying that you shouldn't check it and confirm a uniform seating.... I'm saying that lubrication makes the process easier and just about foolproof

 

[Jason Knight]

Sorry, but there's no BS involved knowing the tire needs to be centered on the rim any time the bead has been broken.

You might want to back-read the thread so you understand my post in context. I wasn't arguing that or saying that part was BS. I was saying people bullshit THEMSELVES into not taking the time to check things like that, or to take safety precautions like armoring up.

There's a lot of self bullshitting involved in the decisions people make.

That said with my own I'm reasonably certain it was centered properly. The tube seemed to expand all around from inside as if the rubber of the tube was too thin and gave out, which is what popped the bead. And I've seen this on other people's bikes too -- something that when I was doing bike stuff regularly 20 years ago I never even heard of. It's too frequent to just be "you didn't seat the tire right". It's almost as if the tires themselves are now a hair too large for the rims, or there is something severely wrong with the tubes.

Which is why I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed after swapping my Aventure to cheap whitewalls around the Kenda tubes it came with. A brand I heard a lot of praise for that I'm increasingly less impressed with. But to be fair I'm increasingly less impressed with where bike tech has gone in manufacturing quality, relative prices, and technological decisions in the ten to fifteen years I took off from paying attention to it.

 

[AHicks]

OK, I get what you're saying - that would never happen to me! Thanks for clarifying. Perfect example of how easy it is to misunderstand the written word....

I found seating and centering the fat tires could be a real challenge. Super soft sidewalls and barely there tire bead area not helpful at all. Having received the tire all wadded up in a ball not helpful either....

 

[Jack Straw Too]

Thanks for the feedback. We did a 20 mile ride no problems so I'm guessing whomever put the tube in the tire may not have done it correctly or it was just a bad tube. Aventon says tire pressure should be between 30 - 50. I'm going to keep the pressure at 40, bike rides fine, tire feels firm.

 

[Jason Knight]

Perfect example of how easy it is to misunderstand the written word....

Context is everything. It doesn't help that text can also lack tone. I'm a New Englander, almost everything we say is laden with sardonic wit, which gets confusing when people who don't understand sarcasm -- like those who neither appreciate or understand stuff like sarcasm or self deprecation -- show up in a conversation.

I found seating and centering the fat tires could be a real challenge. Super soft sidewalls and barely there tire bead area not helpful at all. Having received the tire all wadded up in a ball not helpful either....

As others said soapy water in a spray bottle helps a lot so long as you don't drown it.

I have a technique that worked for me for years where you put your foot down the long way on the empty tube, fill it with just enough air for it to hold its shape but not to really have "pressure". When you take your foot off it will have slightly less air than the shape, so you can put it into the tire and then put BOTH on the rim at the same time. It makes the tube easier to rotate / adjust for proper seating and alignment of the valve stem.

I watch people try to put completely empty tubes and unlubricated tires on a bike and it's like "really?!?" Worse when they use a slotted screwdriver instead of plastic shims. Or don't realize what that little hook on the shim is for and why you use two of them at once.

And if the tire really fights you, a hair dryer or heat gun to soften the rubber of the tire can help, just don't apply too much heat to the tube itself. Or just let it all bake in the sun or a hot garage for an hour.

It does seem like the walls of a lot of fat tires are too thin and/or pliant, the opposite of the problem I'm more used to dealing with. The Kenda's I took off my Aventure didn't have that problem, but to be honest didn't ride like I expected fat tires to. They were pretty stiff and getting them off was a pain. The "cheap" -- if 80 bucks each can be called cheap -- "Wanda / WD" whitewalls I put on were a hell of a lot softer and easier to put on, though every time I thought I had them on right I'd go to add air and the valve would start to slip out of place back under the rim. I think that was just an experience issue though as this is my first fatty.

I will say they ride a hell of a lot nicer than the Kenda Juggernauts. Be interesting to see how they hold up over time.

 

[Ang1sgt]

On tires or tubes blowing out, in a Shop environment it scars you even more, especially if it does it in your hand. Back in the 90’s while working at a new shop I scared the owner and myself. What took this tube out was a cheap plastic rim strip that was very coarse at the seams. I pulled it off and replaced it with a VELOX rim strip and it was fine.

I have NO experience with fat tires yet, but I do see this would be an issue. I see more ways that a bead might slip a little. It’s also one of the first times I’ve thought about going tubeless to save some weight.

 

[fooferdoggie]

On tires or tubes blowing out, in a Shop environment it scars you even more, especially if it does it in your hand. Back in the 90’s while working at a new shop I scared the owner and myself. What took this tube out was a cheap plastic rim strip that was very coarse at the seams. I pulled it off and replaced it with a VELOX rim strip and it was fine.

I have NO experience with fat tires yet, but I do see this would be an issue. I see more ways that a bead might slip a little. It’s also one of the first times I’ve thought about going tubeless to save some weight.

( ad a new wheel built a couple years ago and the shop mounted the tire and it blew off twice after a few minutes of inflation. found the rim the brand new rim was defective. scared everyone twice.

 

[Jason Knight]

I have NO experience with fat tires yet, but I do see this would be an issue. I see more ways that a bead might slip a little. It’s also one of the first times I’ve thought about going tubeless to save some weight.

There is at least one advantage, typically you're only inflating to 5 to 15 PSI, so if it does pop it's... a little less dangerous and scary than the 50 to 80 of hybrid tires, or the batshit nutjob pressures of skinny road tires. When you're putting in 130+ psi into a tire, that's just bad design. I've seen 700C's with max pressures of 150.

That's horrifying.

I did have a puncture at 15psi, and the flatout I put in handled it so well If I hadn't heard the hiss and stopped to check, I wouldn't have noticed the penny nail. I couldn't get the tube to separate from the tire without just making it worse, so I had to ream and use an automotive plug with the tube on the tire instead of patching the tube. Ridden for three months, you'd never know it had a problem. One nice thing was the flatout kicked in fast enough I only lost around 6psi, and fat tires might as well be ride-flats given how low you can go and still not hurt the rim.

Oddly having the tube permanently connected in a spot to the tire makes it easier to align the tube to the stem hole.

I tell you, first time I heard "deflate to 5psi for snow" my brain went "WTF" given even 2.125's take 30psi. But it works great, amazing ride. You plow through snow like a 26" cruiser does beach sand. I'm almost looking forward to that again in two or three months.

 

[Jason Knight]

Oh and when I was doing this stuff "for real" a little over a decade ago, one lesson I learned was to always "feel around" the inside of the rim and to check the edges of the spoke tape. Because yeah, you can't trust manufacturers to have trimmed or sanded all the edges right. A simple run around with your hand, followed by some sanding and grinding can save you a lot of headaches.

Often amazed how many bike shops don't seem to keep a Dremel with sanding and buffing heads handy. So many sharp edges on bikes, it doesn't hurt to knock them down a bit.