Commuting - My bike tube just Exploded.

So, I'm sitting at my desk, programming away, and BANG!!!! a gun shot rings out. I look to my left, where I keep my bike, and my rear tire just went flat. Scared the crap out of me. Just took the wheel off, and the tube has about an 8 inch tear in it, with a small section missing even. I had just pumped up my tires to 100 PSI (The max, according to the side wall of the tire) before starting my ride into work, but that was 3 hours ago.

Hi,
let me guess, you pumped it up outside, where it was cold. Then you brought it
in; where it is warm. How old is the tube?

Is there a very slight spoke end poking into the tube through the rim tape? Maybe a piece of wire/metal/glass barely penetrating the tire somewhere?

Hi,
let me guess, you pumped it up outside, where it was cold. Then you brought it
in; where it is warm. How old is the tube?

Hmm... I have topped both my tubes wayyyyyyyyyy up this am, one in the kitchen, one in the garage, now both are equilibrating in doors. I guess the rear was the one I did outside, that would be the one to blow now...

I pumped it up inside my apartment, and the tube is a month old at the latest. The tires are new as of friday, and I have mr. tuffy liners in also. But the tires are at the bottom size range for the tube, 35MM tires, and a 35-40MM tube, and the tear was on the side of the tube, so maybe I had a slight pinch somewhere. I ran my hand around the tire and the rim, and didn't notice any jaggies or other protrusions that could have been an issue.

I had one go off about 20" from my ears - ouch. The tube blows out a sidewall if the tire isn't seated well enough. It's dependent on the tire type, the rim, and the psi. Some of the older rims (27" for example) can't take much more than 80 psi. I have problems with a set of aero weinman 700c rims.

The tires are new as of friday, .

There's the thing - I bet you got some tube pinched under the bead when you installed them. For an explosion there has to be a sudden expansion/decompression and that means the bead blew off the rim or the sidewall blew out. A puncture from a spoke or a thorn never causes an explosion and the increase in pressure from cold to warm wouldn't be enough to blow the tire unless you had the tube pinched anyway. You just got lucky that it didn't blow out before now.

It also happens when braking on long descents if you're not careful because the rims can get boiling hot.

Pressure difference due to expansion in human-survivable conditions isn't that great, maybe 5-10%. not enough to blow a tire.
The tire bead slipped off the rim. Either not seated properly, or bead was damaged. I've had it happen before.

Been there.

Woke up everyone in my old office, anyways.

That happened to me, too. Right in the middle of work. Ka-BLAM! Almost knocked me out of my chair and sent my co-workers running to my office. Then they laughed at me.

So I put the spare tube in, pumped it up. And... Ka-BLAM! Even more laughter (good natured). That was my last spare, no patches, so I took the wheel into the bike shop (a co-worker was kind enough to give me a lift).

They found a little scrap of metal poking through my tire. I had completely missed it when I checked the inside of the tire.

I mounted up some new CX tires on a wheelset from the 80's. At 2:00 a.m. it went off. The cats and my wife went to Defcon 4, but I sort of slept through it. The other one blew at 4:30 a.m.

This is definately not due to a temperature/pressure increase. The amount of change just isn't enough to blow a tube. This has been discusssed before. I suspect there was a weak spot in the tube that finally decided to give out. This happened once while my poor, unfortunate cat was playing with a pedal when the explosion happened.

This happened to me too, in my office and about 4h after inflating the tire. I think a bit of tube was definitely pinched in my case---now i am careful to massage both beads all the way around before really pressurizing my tires..

Yep, I did it twice to my poor co-workers, finally realized that my tire/rim combo couldn't handle that pressure, nor the co-workers as well. Since I wasn't about to spring the cash for better tires and wheels, I just lowered the pressure 10lbs and there were no more sudden cardiovascular workouts being done at the work place. ;)

I was sitting here at the computer one time about a year or so ago.

I hear a BANG from the other end of the house, so I get up to go investigate.

I enter my son's bedroom to find large pieces of shredded innertube all over the room.
Me: "What happened?":rolleyes:
Son (13, then): "Oh, Hi, Dad. A tube will only hold 20 PSI when not in a tire and rim.":o
Daughter (5): silent :eek:
Me: <Well, that one did anyway.>
Me: "You okay?"
Son: "Yeah."
Me: "Clean it up.":rolleyes:
Me: <walk away :D >