yannisg

Recently on a 200k brevet my rear tire blew out suddenly. Luckily I was riding slowly uphill. Apart from the blow out hole that was about 3-4mm the tire had a few slits next to the hole that looked like they were caused during the blow out. The hole was on the tread and not the sidewall. I added a Park tool tire boot and a new inner tube. After awhile I noticed a slight bulge around the damaged area, and reduced the pressure to about 80psi. After riding another 40k the tire blew out again making a hole in the tire boot. Added a piece of inner tube to cover the hole, and inflated the tire to 80 psi. After another 30k it blew out again (3 klm before the finish). Added another piece of inner tube and finished the Brevet.
I've had a few instances where I have had cut tires, but usually on the side wall, but never such a complete blowout.
The tire had about 2500k on it, but no signs of excessive wear. It had been inspected before the Brevet.

A few riders on Brevets carry a spare tire, but that's an extra item to carry for something that happens infrequently.

Any views on this is appreciated.
YannisG

Machka 

I have carried a spare tire on many rides ... or if not, then a collection of tire boots.

Rowan

And I have never carried a spare tyre on a randonnee, but do have a boot... and up to three inner tubes depending on the length of the ride.

Rowan

Can I also ask, yannis, how old the tyre was? And while we're at it, you might as well tell us the brand, model and size.

10 Wheels

Folding spares are easy to carry.







Or triple fold a wire tire.

yannisg

Tires were Mavic Yksion 700X25c purchased with the bike (Cannodale synapse) on 4/14. As mentioned, tires had about 2500k on them, and didn't show any external wear or were exposed to the sunlight. I use tubeless tires on most of my Brevets hence the low mileage on the tires.
YannisG

unterhausen

I carry a spare tire. I have seen people need them too often to skip it. I had an unbootable blowout recently, would have been a ride ending mess if I wasn't carrying a spare. The boots don't work all that often, from what I've seen. People carry Tyvek (think Fedex envelope) and duct tape also might be necessary. I think I could have used duct tape if it weren't for the fact that I had another 150 miles and 18 hours of riding left. My tire was a Bontrager with about 1000k on it. I put it on last year, rode the 400k and about 300k of the 600k, a 200k this year, and less than 100 miles of the fleche.

10 Wheels

I gave this guy two tubes and finally a spare tire after his Third Flat. We could not find the reason for the flats.

Saw him the next day on a 100 mile ride using the spare tire.

yannisg

Thanks for the response.
I've used paper money for a cut in someone's side wall, and I've seen riders use a piece cut from a juice carton (Tetrapak) or a piece cut from at plastic coke bottle. True the Park tool boot doesn't seem that strong to hold anything bigger than a small cut.
YannisG

DXchulo

Sounds like a freak occurrence to me. I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it. I know people are going to argue about what you should carry. Some people carry minimal stuff and others carry everything, including the kitchen sink. I'm more of a minimalist, myself. Especially for a 200k.

I have more than 130,000 miles under my belt. I've never had a blowout that the good old 1 dollar bill couldn't fix. Maybe I'll get one today. If I do, I'll just chalk it up to bad luck and move on. No way I'm carrying an extra tire for something so rare. Sure, one tire may not weigh a whole lot, but where do you draw the line? There's a long list of things that could fail on you. I've seen a frame crack on a brevet before. Does that mean I should think about carrying a spare frame?

yannisg

DXchulo thanks for the response.
Agree.
YannisG

znomit

Carry a spare tyre on most rides over 200k, and anything where there's some gravel or it's particularly remote. Only need it once, about 5km from the end of a 400. That's a long walk at 3am.

rhm

One time (not on a brevet) I got a 2" rip between the tire and the bead, and just happened to have $160 in twenties in my wallet. I replaced the tube wrapped them all the way around the tube in a helical fashion, covering the area of the rip and a few inches on either side. It worked bizarrely well; when pumped up (over 60 psi, I'm guessing) you couldn't even tell where the rip was. When I got home I replaced the tire and put the money back in my wallet.

I now carry a strip of tyvek cut from a priority mail envelope. Haven't had a chance to use it yet (not that I'm complaining). It weighs nothing, takes up no space, and seems a prudent thing to have with me.

Carbonfiberboy 

I carry a spare tire on every ride. When I flat, I change the tire and the tube. Very quick compared to trying to find the problem. The extra weight is nothing compared with the improvement in tube change time. On a brevet, carry a spare tire, 4 tubes, a patch kit, a boot kit, and a frame pump. Heckuva lot better option than a DNF.

unterhausen

the frame was cracked before the ride. Same for almost all component failures. I proactively change out a lot of parts on my rando bike to keep them from being problems. Including tires. But tires are something that is going to be damaged on a ride occasionally. I remember my first year randoing, when a rider had a tire failure with about 10 miles left in a brutal 200k. He dejectedly remarked that his ride was over and asked his compatriots to come pick him up after they finished. But it turned out all of the rest of us had a spare tire, so happiness was achieved.

yannisg

Thanks for responding.
I have experienced cut tires on training rides. All of them were on the sidewall. I continued riding by either using a tire boot or paper bill.
This was the 1st time I experience a hole on the tread. A few klm before the blowout we had gone through 800m of a dirt-gravel section. So, I suspect that the tread got damaged there, developed a hole, and then blewout. After applying the Park tool boot it probably got worn by the tarmac because it was being pushed through the hole on the tread. It lasted about 40k. The next patch was a piece of inner tube that got worn after about 30k in a similar manner. I don't know if another material such as Tyvex or a piece of juice carton would have lasted longer. On 200k brevets I would probably just carry tire boot materials. On longer Brevet I would carry a spare tire that could be shared if you are doing the ride with a group. As mentioned, how much someone carries is a personal matter.

unterhausen

tyvek will fix most problems and is a lot lighter and smaller than a tire. I have never figured out how to carry duct tape, but that works too. One rider I know had a sidewall blowout, and nothing was working. He had 650b, so no chance of finding a spare. I told him about duct tape, and he managed to find some from a homeowner along the route. He rode the final 100-ish miles of a 600k on that duct tape.

The year I rode my gravel bike on brevets, I didn't have a spare tire or any way of fixing a tire other than the tried and true dollar bill boot method. So it's a legit choice in my book, particularly if you change your tires out regularly.

njkayaker

Interesting that the boot got a hole. Maybe, it moved.

Inner tubes won't really work reliably (that's why you use a boot). No surprise that the tube pieces blew.

That makes sense. The boots aren't meant to be on the road. They are meant to be protected by the tread (which means holes that are too big are a problem).

The Park boot is pretty tough. It will last longer than the other stuff you listed.

It seems your problem was fairly unusual. And you managed anyway. Maybe, carry more Park boots.

njkayaker

Boots have to be flexible but not stretchy. GU packets work too.

Duct tape is overrated for any use. You can carry it by wrapping it around something like a plastic gift card.

DXchulo

You were on that ride too? Amazing!


In general I can agree with what you're saying. Taking good care of your gear can prevent a lot of problems and prevent small problems from becoming major. Hard to say if that was the case on that ride, though. I didn't know the guy well enough to know how well he takes care of his stuff. Good rider, though, and he was able to finish the ride.


The frame had to crack at some point, right? It's not impossible that it cracked during the ride. I don't remember, but I think that was a 400k and there were definitely some bumpy roads along the way.

79pmooney

My vote would have been for dollar bills. I carry at least 5 with me and have had to use that many to get home. For your blowout, I would have tried using both bills running lengthwise (probably two) and a couple going across, bead to bead so they are trapped by the bead and rim.

(The one time when the lowly dollar bill is worth more than its face value.)

Ben

yannisg

Just one week later.
On a recent 200k brevet my Hutchinson fusion 3 tubeless rear tire blewout on the tread. The tire was 2 yrs old, and had 4000k on it. I was able to finish the Brevet by using a boot cut from a fruit juice carton (Tetrapak) with 70-80 psi. In my opinion the Park tool boot is too soft to use on a tread hole. At the end of the brevet it looked like the repair would last much longer. Sometimes you get lucky.
In my experience tread hole are rare compared to side cut or slits.

unterhausen

frames just don't crack that fast. They take at least a few rides to get from the point where you can see it to the point where there is a noticeable difference in the way the bike rides. A few bumps isn't going to cause a crack that is going to end that ride, even a 250 mile ride.

I have a bad habit of looking at Waterford fastback seatstays because I once fixed a cracked one. Turns out about half of them I have looked at have been cracked. I looked at a guy's bike before PBP, saw that it was cracked, and decided not to tell him. Now, some people say that was irresponsible of me, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to break all the way. And if I wasn't there, he was going to ride his cracked bike on PBP anyway. He finished. I feel like I would have ruined his PBP if I told him his bike was cracked the day before the ride.

znomit

Wrap a few turns of tape around your seatpost.

joewein

I do that with electrical tape. I also keep a small roll of it in my tool bag.

I'm firmly in the no spare tire faction. I've had one puncture in the last 10,000 km. About double punctures - I think I've had two of them in 46,000 km, because I didn't properly track down the reason for the first puncture.

It helps to run on relatively wide tires - 30 mm on my Bike Friday and 650Bx42 on my Elephant NFE. They seem to greatly reduce the risk of punctures.

I ride with one or two spare tubes and patches, but spare tires only in exceptional cases, such as when I headed up that road across the mountains that had been officially closed to all traffic for years, with unsurfaced sections and more evidence of past land slides than you can shake a stick at.

So far I've not yet had to use a tire boot on my own bike, though I helped out another cyclist once.

I've had one cracked frame (on my brother's aluminium bike) and two snapped RD cables during the same time, before I started religiously replacing them every 12 months.