General Cycling Discussion - mysterious flat

This is the weirdest flat I have ever heard of. After 12 miles into my ride last night I stopped at my parents house out in the country to check in with them & my grandmother. A little later one of my dads friends came to visit & while we were all talking outside I heard a noise that sounded like a .22 cal rifle going off. Guess what it was? My rear tire was flat when I went to ride back home, when I checked everything out the tube would hold 30lbs of air but would bleed the rest out. After trying to get it to hold air a couple of times I just replaced the tube with the extra I keep in my seat pack. I guess the valve stem just went goofy because if it got more than 30 lbs inflated it would just pull itself in & deflate. Has anyone else heard of this before?

nope.

and I've had more flats than probably everyone here, combined.

I've had tubes w/ more than 20 patches on them.

I've gotten over five flats in one day.

My strangest flat happened because of a strange brand of rim tape. I bought the stuff at Nashbar maybe 6 or 7 years ago. It was orange and made of polyurethane or something. I can’t remember the manufacture. I was showing off my brand new Cannondale road bike that I had built up from a frame. I had ridden to a friend’s house about 10 miles on my new bikes maiden voyage. While standing there the rear tire just blew (this was a bit embarrassing). After checking the rim and tire, I figured I had just gotten a bad tube and put in my spare. I got home and it blew again. After checking both blown tubes I discovered that the holes were in the same location and on the rim side of the tube. The plastic rim tape, which came in a continuous loop that you stretched over the rim, was indented at every spoke eyelet on the inner wall of the rim (Mavic MA-40s). This actually split the rim tape and pinched the tube and KABOOM. I threw out the plastic tape and only use the cloth stuff that sticks to the rim. This was a road bike using 120 PSI. The plastic stuff might have worked better with a lower pressure.

Originally posted by mnppunky
...I heard a noise that sounded like a .22 cal rifle going off. Has anyone else heard of this before?
Could the tube have been pinched during installation? Do you need new rim tape?

Rim tape is new & the tube was not pinched. The valve stem will not allow anything above around 30 psi to remain in the tube. The tube will hold air but the stem is bad.

I had a tire with slime in it. It had gotten a flat, but the slime plugged it. I made a 12.5 mile the next day to the beach. When I went back to the bike to had home, the instant I touch the bike, apparently the slime plug instantly broke loose and the tire went flat in a few seconds.

Bob (246 flatless miles on the Armadillo and counting)

I had a flat I had to change last night near a misquito infested swamp, this was the third in a week, same spot, so I have some investigating to do. I felt the inside of the tyre examined the tread. This is the thrid tube with a hole in the same spot and no obvious reason for it.

Originally posted by naisme
I had a flat I had to change last night near a misquito infested swamp, this was the third in a week, same spot, so I have some investigating to do. I felt the inside of the tyre examined the tread. This is the thrid tube with a hole in the same spot and no obvious reason for it.

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be a small piece of glass that you couldn't feel - it stayed totally within the tread. But when the tire was under high pressure, with me riding it, and hitting bumps along the way, apparently that little piece of glass would push out into the tube and eventually puncture it. But when I would search for the cause, it would be hitten again.

Someone else actually found it for me, by flexing the tire various ways, including pretty much inverting the tire inside out, and under a good light in showed up.

Bob

The main clue is the BANG it makes.

Originally posted by mnppunky
This is the weirdest flat I have ever heard of. After 12 miles into my ride last night I stopped at my parents house out in the country to check in with them & my grandmother. A little later one of my dads friends came to visit & while we were all talking outside I heard a noise that sounded like a .22 cal rifle going off. Guess what it was? My rear tire was flat when I went to ride back home, when I checked everything out the tube would hold 30lbs of air but would bleed the rest out. After trying to get it to hold air a couple of times I just replaced the tube with the extra I keep in my seat pack. I guess the valve stem just went goofy because if it got more than 30 lbs inflated it would just pull itself in & deflate. Has anyone else heard of this before?

exact same thing happened to me last night...i parked my bike in a friend backyard, went to open the gate to get out of the yard. then i hear this ssBOOOOOOM.. sort of looking over that way i see a big dust cloud being kicked up...seems the back tire just blew up

Gremlins with .22's

Answer to NAISME's post........ could it have been the nasty mosquitos in the nearby swamp!!!!!! During the Angolan bush war we joked that the wheels of our vehicles needed armour plating and not the vehicles themselves. We used to listen to the mozzies entering our tents two by two when one would say "shall we eat him here or outside" the other mozzie would say "No we cannot take him outside the big one's will take him off" LOL

Keep those wheels spinning!!!!!

Big H

Another thing to consider- when did you pump air into your tire? If you did it just before your ride, maybe the tube was bunched in one part and it finally did blow after 12 miles of riding.

Also, you may want to consider slightly inflating the tire and holding it underwater to see exactly where the hole is. It could be just that the hole is too small to detect otherwise.

Consider taking a wet sponge and wiping out the inside of your tire- there could be a tiny bit of debris inside the tire that you can't feel, but if you just rub the sponge a few times on the inside of the tire, you may be able to wipe out the offending debris.


Koffee

Weird stuff...
the same thing happened to me yesterday!

I finally had a nice ride on my new Sequoia Expert. Between foul weather and a 5 month old, it was difficult to get out and ride.

For father's day we got a chance to walk on the boardwalk. I rode for 12 miles. On the walk home, maybe 45 minutes after I stopped riding, we hear a loud rush of air. We hone in on the stem of the front tire just as the 100 psi was now down to about 0 psi.

Very odd I thought, since riding on the boardwalk put a bit of shake into the bike and would expect that such a problem would happen while riding, not nearly an hour later.

I filled the tubes to 100 psi before I left the house...walked with my wife and baby to the boardwalk...rode a bit and then walked home.

I figure that if the tube was stressed, it would have blown a tube while riding. Walking it home, I did not roll over any sharp objects. I was walking the bike, so no real pressure was against the tire.

When I inflated the tires before my ride, I noticed that the knurled nuts that keep the stem seated onto the rim were loose. I tightened them, but not very tight. I can only wonder if I should have left them loose, or was this just a coincidence. (I never left them loose on my previous bike).

When I got home, I tried to inflate the tube again...didn't seem to take more than 20 psi while pumping.

Bad stem?
Any ideas?

Father's Day = First real ride
Father's Day = First real repair!

So,
I need to get another tube (I will get a few actually).

The Sequoia uses the Specialized Turbo Ultra Lights.
For the heck of it, I went to www.roadbikereview.com to see if there were any reviews on tubes. I find it odd that there are review categories for all components of the wheels, including whole wheelsets, but none for tubes.