*BANG*

[vakkotaur]

For some time I didn't ride the bicycle. This was for various reasons, laziness included. One of them was that the rear tire had a slow leak (which seemed to have disappeared when I checked again this Spring) and I wasn't sure just how to go about getting the rear wheel off of the bike and then changing the inner tube and reassembling everything. It's a ten speed and the thing looks complicated and I recall hearing people having seemingly endless trouble with the shifting mechanism. Go ahead and laugh now, get it out. I now know just how silly that all is. This evening I had to change the tire and tube.

I was out riding and things were going along fairly well when there was a *BANG* and I knew right off that the rear tire was no longer in working order. Looking at it, it was no simple thing that a mere patch might fix. The tire itself was truly worn out in a spot and even if the tube were patched, the patch wouldn't even last the trip home. It was a nice enough day and I wasn't very fair along, really, so I expected I'd walk the bicycle home and deal with things. Instead, an older gentleman, who was outside and heard the tire blow, was friendly but insistent upon seeing the condition of the tire that I let him give me and the bike a ride home. Rather than stand around arguing against it, I agreed - after telling him that I didn't want to have him go out of the way and it wasn't a big deal for me to walk. So I got a ride home. The fellow was once a milkman in town and so had some familiarity with most of the town, though he admitted he isn't as certain about some places as he used to be, it all being so long ago.

Once home, I looked at a few web pages on changing bicycle tires and dealing with rear tires on multispeed bikes. I'm not sure if it didn't occur to me to check the web years ago, or if there weren't as many good web resources then. After looking around a bit and seeing the same information in a few places I went to it. It was almost as easy as dealing with the front tire, which I had done a few weeks ago. The changing of the tire went a little easier too, perhaps due to the previous experience, perhaps due to the weather being a a bit cooler and rather less humid. Getting things back together was fairly easy. I spent quite a bit of time fiddling around, but the only real trouble was being sure that the tire beads seated properly without pinching the tube. And I was quite glad to have the new tire ready and waiting, rather than have to wait for another order to come in. I did go for a short ride afterward, to be sure of things. Evidently I did it right. I didn't have to walk home.


The hole in the tube isn't too big and probably could be patched were I so inclined. As you can see, it's a hole and not a gash - this was not the result of the rim slicing the tube as at least one source suggested was often the cause of an audible blowout.



However, there was little point to a patch with the tire in this condition. I would have needed something to protect the tube, and it wasn't worth the effort to fiddle with as I could have walked the bike home.


I do not consider this a result of a defective tire. The tire was old and the picture makes the apparently good part of the tire look better than it is. I was expecting to have to change this tire sometime soon, I just wasn't expecting it to go out with a bang.

Comments

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

I remember an audible bang once when I was inflating the tire at the gas station, apparently overinflated because they could probably hear the "BANG" clear through to your place! (It left a wicked ringing in my ears for some time.) Annoyed me as I started with simply a underinflated tire and finished with no tire.

Bikes

[akktri.livejournal.com]

I've seen some new bicycles with no seats. You think you'd ever buy one of those?

Re: Bikes

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I'm not sure what the point would be of such a thing. Perhaps some competition cycling thing, which I don't care about. I'd want to at least have the option of sitting down.