tallard

Sorry! non conventional input is difficult in conventional subjects. However Wikipedia does allow people to create entries on a variety of topics. These less conventional or not so popular topics indeed are more accepting of different "opinions"

However, I'd consider the word "dictator" to be one of the conventional entries...

MSPD

Correlation completely unsupported by fact.

None. I don't go around presenting myself as a definitive authority on matters especially in matters of life and safety. I would rather take the honorable approach of understanding the limits of my "expertise".

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Stephen Covey

Helmet Head

There seems to be a high correlation between people who make disparaging remarks about Wikipedia content like this: "unlike Wikipedia onto which anyone can post information regardless of the existence of supporting data and credentials."

And people who answer questions like, "What have been your contributions to Wikipedia?" with "None".

There is no topic about which you feel you know enough to be able to contribute about it on Wikipedia? Maybe the articles on your favorite books, movies, hobbies or vacation spots? Your home town? The organization for which you work? You don't know anything with authority?

Helmet Head

Is it not true that your front tire can blow at any time? Is it not possible that a front tire blowing could cause to swerve or fall to your left?

Seriously. It has never happened to me, but I've heard other cyclists talk about it.

I mean, I've gotten a front flat before, but it wasn't a sudden explosion and I didn't lose control.

MSPD

Flak and no substance. It's really odd that you focus me and my style rather than on the content of what I'm saying. Very strange.

Off to the family vacation...ride safely everyone and enjoy Labor Day.

Helmet Head

Forget the "fear", stick with analysis.

Is it as rare as a meteor?

In a lifetime of cycling, how likely is it that a front tire might blow for a given cyclist, enough to cause him to lose control and swerve or fall to the left? Will this happen only to 1 out of 100,000,000+ cyclists (which would begin to liken it to being worried about being hit by a meteor, which supposedly happens to about 1 person every 50 years), or is it significantly more likely, like 1 out of 10,000 cyclists, 1,000, 100 or 10?

And given a group of, say, 1,000,000 motorists, who regularly pass cyclists with less than 3 feet of lateral clearance despite speed differentials above 30 mph, how many, after a lifetime of driving, will end up clipping a cyclist due to an oversight on their part or an unexpected swerve or fall on the part of the cyclist? 0? 1? 2? 4? 8? 20? 50? 100? 250? 500? 1,000? 2500? 5,000? 10,000?

I don't know what these numbers are - no research on it as far as I know.

Never-the-less, it seems likely to me that the odds of a cyclist being clipped by a close-passer are significantly higher than the odds of being hit by a meteor. I prefer to err on the side of caution and ride, including riding in a manner that encourages motorists to drive, accordingly.

Helmet Head

Have a good one!

I enjoyed our conversation, at least in the early phases.

Allister

Well, you're insistence that anything I say that doesn't agree with your kockamamie theories must therefore be wrong was a clue. (see below - you're still doing it)

Do you think that applies to me?

How utterly fascinating

Again, do you think that applies to me?

Me too.

You really are quite amazingly full of yourself, Serge. So unless I automatically agree with you, my mind is closed?

LittleBigMan

Oh, yeah. I get much more respect when acting like I'm supposed to ride there.

I saw a cyclist recently (don't jump on me guys, I'm just sayin',) who was trying to move as far to the right as "practical" for a large vehicle.

That dad-blamed driver didn't even give that cyclist enough room at all--he didn't even cross the lane line in a narrow spot.

That's how motorists think: "If I can squeeze through that gap..."

tallard

Hmm, interesting, before escaping to SE Florida, in 25 years of cycling, I'd had maybe a dozen flats. Suddenly in 5 years of cycling in SE Florida, and putting in much less miles and time, like way less, I've had 20 flats or so!!!! I think it's because of some of the prickly vegetation down south, I've had to add in inner strip to my dual purpose MTB tires... How very annoying!

OK, back to the post, out of all these flats, NOT ONCE did they make me swerve!!! not even close. I've never even heard from fellow cyclists that a flat that them swerve, you've all experienced that**********?

The only times I swerve is to get out of broken class or a detritus whose shape could cause it to take flight as I hit it... Otherwise I'll only swerve if I'm distracted which I only do if I let myself, on quiet ways....

Bekologist

Head, if you can't tell if that road is wide enough to ride and share by using the shoulder to ride in, based on that photo, WTH are you going ON AND ON and babbling about?

your fear of overtaking traffic on wide open country roads (with good sightlines) is duly noted.
...and you think that is a very narrow shoulder....

you've convinced me you don't ride many country roads AT ALL.

Helmet Head - A nervous nellie crying wolf "The sky is falling, the sky is falling".

RobertHurst

Tires do not explode spontaneously. The tube cannot explode while inside a tire. 'Blowouts' occur after a tire has been installed incorrectly, leaving a section of tube on the outside of the tire bead. It can happen if you're not careful; the tube exploits that path of no resistance and pops. An inflated tube may also poink out of a large hole in the tire, explode, or puncture after contact with the street. But you should notice if your tire has a hole large enough that the tube balloons out. It's conceivable that such an event could cause a nasty wreck, but it is irrational to go around worrying about your tire exploding spontaneously. Instead, learn what causes these rare 'blowouts' and avoid it. It's easily done.

Robert

-=(8)=-

I bought a big, cheap cruiser bike and was doing errands on it in Vermont.
I stopped at a store , conducted my business and was riding what was about
100 feet to the curb cutout to get into the street. The tire spontaniously deflated(?)
in about .3 of a second.... One bead of the tire rolled off the rim in about 4 rotations
of the wheel. If I was going down a hill I feel safe in saying I definately would have fallen.
The bike did veer to the left because the right bead of the tire was off the rim totally.
When I pulled it apart, the seams had come apart about 4" up both sides perfectly.

genec

In well over 30 years of cycling I have had plenty of flats... especially when pushing tires past their prime. Every one, even when fully loaded for touring was something that amounted to a hiss... either fast or slow.

The only "blowouts" I have ever heard of, occurred when someone filled a low pressure tire at a gas station with too high pressure, and then rode off to soon experience a loud "blowout." Those low pressure balloon tires can go with quite a bang.

A narrow tube squeaking out of a worn hole in a tire or past a sidewall when improperly installed still makes quite a pop, but as Robert mentioned, these are usually noticeable as they occur.

-=(8)=-

Are these 23c's ?

There is a 'flat season' in Vermont...when the roads are finally snow
free but the tons of stuff they put on the roads is left behind holing
tubes regularly. On my fixie(23c) the air left the tire in what seemed like
only a nano-second but good tires stayed on the rim. No loss of control issues.

John Wilke

It doesn't matter where on the road you ride ... you SHOULD be seen and left ample room.

This is the road I was riding, looking back from where I came when I got run down.



I should have been seen no matter where I was, YET, I was run down, hard enough so that I landed in that tall grass off to the side, mind you, and the driver kept going.

So again, it doesn't matter where on the road you ride, you should expect to be NOT run over by anyone who deserves to be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

-=(8)=-

Thats terrible John.
I havent been following this thread until recently, Ill have to go
back and read about this. I hope you are OK ?
This is the perspective I come from on road cycling and get alot of
flak for it.....Yes, you should be seen, you should be given respect and
safe passage, but the reality that is very far away from this is that
a lot of drivers most emphaticly DO NOT deserve to be driving and
we all suffer accordingly. This is why if my bicycular 6th sense tells me
to get off of the road for a block or two, I just listen to it.
Again, I hope you are OK !

genec

Let me throw this in... as an illustration of backcountry roads one might typically find in California. Certainly hiway 1 along the coast looks quite a bit like this and this is indeed typical of many "farm" highways.

Take a look at the "shoulder" on this road... there ain't none. Where would you ride?



I myself have ridden this road many times, and frankly it is a good fun ride.

Here are some quotes from the article accompanying this picture:
" Lyons Valley Road, running northeast from Jamul, is one of the oldest roads in the county. It dates to 1851, when Army Capt. Nathaniel Lyon mapped the route, looking for a faster way east."

"There isn't much traffic in this portion of East County and most of the through drivers use Skyline Truck Trail, avoiding most of the serious twists. Bicyclists, a few motorcycles and motorists who appeared to be locals were the only drivers I saw on a recent Saturday morning. And the locals don't tolerate careless driving."

"First, the road starts a more aggressive climb. Then the twists begin. And what great twists they are."

"The county road engineers who placed the signs were serious; Lyons Valley Road has, for its length, among the most number of hairpin, blind and any other descriptor for dangerous curves that can be found in the thesaurus."

"Several sections are on shelves – spots where there was no place to build a road, so a cliff was blasted or excavated to create a shelf. That means one side is a cliff rising 50 feet or more; the other side a drop-off, with the bottom 50 feet down."

From https://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...d25branda.html

joejack951

Um, I've had a rear tube blowout (sounded like a gunshot) from a glass puncture and it caused me to a do little swervy swerve back and forth before I slowed the bike down. I've been behind a guy (luckily with a good bit of a gap) descending at 40mph and just as we reached the bottom of the hill his back tire when flat with a loud bang. I've also blown out a few tubes installing tires on a set of wheels I have where the outer diameter of the rim is a bit small. It's much easier to install and remove tires on those wheels but I have to watch very carefully every time I inflate them from 0 psi.

Helmet Head

Let's keep the skewering in perspective and not blow things out of proportion, please.

The only reason this was ever raised was in the context of talking about why it is desirable for motorists to pass cyclists with a reasonably safe passing distance. Off the top of my head I listed a few reasons I could think of for why a cyclist might suddenly veer off course, developing a front blowout being just one of them. I don't know how long ago that discussion was held, but I know I rarely if ever brought up that possibility before or after, until now that Pete raised it again. That hardly constitutes evidence of me or anyone else going "around worrying about your tire exploding spontaneously".

Helmet Head

Whether you SHOULD be seen is irrelevant. Drivers make mistakes. That's a given you SHOULD acknowledge, and ride accordingly. You should NOT expect to be seen, at least not without verifying, especially if you're riding in a manner that invites close passes, or you might get run down. But you already know about that.

Helmet Head

In the picture you see a truck moving away from the camera, and a car in the distance coming towards us. Picture a cyclist in the right lane (same as truck) a ways in front of the truck, opposite the car. Picture the cyclist in two potential positions:

1. Riding near the fog line.
2. Riding near the center of the road.

Now put yourself in the driver's seat of the truck. Is a cyclist in position (a) or (b) significantly more likely to get your attention sooner? Is a cyclist in position (a) or (b) significantly more likely to be overlooked? Is a cyclist in position (a) or (b) significantly more likely to cause you to slow down sooner, or slow down at all? Or are the probabilities about the same?

RobertHurst

The only way that could be true is if the glass caused such a huge, gaping hole in the tire that the tube exploded out of the hole. To test this out, pump your tire up to 120 psi and puncture it with something sharp, like a tack or shard of glass, and see what happens. Hisssssssss. Once again, it is physically impossible for a punctured tube to make any sort of bang while inside the tire. Only if the tire is no longer there to hold it back will the tube explode.

It is possible to put so much air pressure into a tire that it blows off the rim or otherwise fails. As gene says, this is common when people use the gas station compressor to fill up their bike tires. It is also possible when overinflated tires get super-heated by braking on long downhills, usually only a problem for tandems, but may be what happened to the guy here:

Either that, or his tire/tube had been improperly installed, leaving a bit of tube to work its way slowly out from under the bead, and it finally achieved its complete freedom as he heated the rims in braking.

Robert

rajman

I have had one blowout experience, as a child. I was riding up a hill on my very first two wheeler (eight years old and riding in Montreal traffic - it seems I've been riding forever ), when I heard a loud bang.

I did not sweve, if anyone is wondering, but my tire was flat, and upon inspection there was a hole in the tire and tube, and there was a small steel ball bearing inside the tire.

I've always wondered what type of *****hole shoots at a little kid for the fun of it, and also been amazed at how good a shot that guy was, if he was indeed trying to shoot out my tire. It seems to me that shooting a moving bicycle tire from any distance whatsoever would be pretty much an impossible shot.

If my limited flat experience is anything to go by, swerving has not been a problem, though I would be afraid of crashing if a tire suddenly flatted when I was on a steep, curving downhill grade.

RobertHurst

Concerning blowouts, etc. the possibility of rim failure should also be noted. Heavily used rims can be very worn down by rim-braking, especially in wet climates. Over time this causes the side section of the rim to thin and eventually crack lengthwise; the cracked rim can fail catastrophically, and the failure is often accompanied by the loud BANG! of the tube suddenly finding freedom. This leads many people to believe that the blowout led somehow to the rim failure, rather than the other way around.

Robert