Re: Catastrophic tube/tire failure

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:32:09 GMT, "Claire Petersky"
<cpetersky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Here's the story:

I was sick for a week, and then on vacation for a week. When I got back, my
back tire was very low, having about 20 lbs of pressure. Front was fine.
Before I took off for work, I pumped the tires up.

About three miles into the ride, I heard a loud bang, and found that the
tire had a one inch split, on the tread. Same with the tube. I am unaware of
riding over anything, but it's certainly possible.

Question:

Do you think there a relationship between the back tire being very low and
it spliting later? In other words, were these two events unrelated, or was
the tire being so low symptomatic of something going wrong that caused the
big bang 15 minute later?

Observations:

If the tire splits to that degree due to age or previously unsuspected
damage, the tube will fail regardless of condition.

The tire's condition has no bearing on air loss unless it fails in a
manner that causes the tube to blow out, as happened here.

You didn't say what the age of the failed tire was. If you've been
following accepted good practice, the best tire was on the front,
which makes the rear more likely to be the one that will fail.

Without further information, it's hard to come up with a definitive
explanation, but my running guess is that the rear tire was getting
ready to fail. Coincidentally, the tube had a slow leak. Perhaps,
upon discovering the very low tire, you may have overinflated it
slightly; in most cases, this would not present any hazard. In any
event, as you noted, the rear tire blew out. I'd write it off to a
random failure.
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