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Co2 Cartridges for Balloon Tires?

Old 09-02-15, 06:54 PM
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Originally Posted by habilis
I have filled motorcycle tires and topped up car tires with a bike floor pump. It takes about 100 strokes to get from, say, 20 psi to 35 psi in a car tire. Don't even think about it if you have a weak heart. I'd venture to say that these tasks would be nearly impossible with a frame pump. Anyone who hasn't actually tried to do this with a 3.5" bike tire shouldn't berate anyone for using CO2 once or twice a year in a roadside emergency.
100 strokes to get a car tire from 20 psi to 35 psi? What size car tire? It's been a long time since I've tried something like that but I'm thinking 1,000 strokes might be in the ball park if you're lucky.
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Old 09-02-15, 06:57 PM
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Originally Posted by RubeRad
CO2 shaming and environmentalism: wouldn't the environmental disadvantage of CO2 cartridges lie primarily in the mining and production of the metal cartridges themselves, and the fact that people litter them all the time (and if they don't, how often do they recycle the spent cartridge instead of landfilling it)?
I think that you're right. The CO2 itself isn't manufactured, it's extracted from the air. In other words, it was already there.
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Old 09-02-15, 08:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Retro Grouch
100 strokes to get a car tire from 20 psi to 35 psi? What size car tire? It's been a long time since I've tried something like that but I'm thinking 1,000 strokes might be in the ball park if you're lucky.
Totally, I have twice pumped up a tire with a nail or screw in it using the floor pump just so I could safely drive it to get repaired. It took a LONG time to get up to 30psi, I was tired and sweating. Many hundred strokes I'm sure.
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Old 09-03-15, 03:11 AM
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Landfills are not a dead end, they will be mined for resources in the future I'm sure. But consider a program like cash for clunkers that intentionally destroyed working auto mobiles the "working poor" could have used, and in return gave huge tax breaks to build net loss hybrids with a toxic wasteland of battery mfg and disposal coming from them. Makes the two CO2 ctg I have used in my lifetime look pretty trivial :-).
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Old 09-03-15, 05:21 AM
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Originally Posted by RubeRad
Totally, I have twice pumped up a tire with a nail or screw in it using the floor pump just so I could safely drive it to get repaired. It took a LONG time to get up to 30psi, I was tired and sweating. Many hundred strokes I'm sure.
I bet I could ride my bike to the local auto parts store, buy a $10 cigarette lighter powered air compressor, ride home and inflate the car tire in less time and with less sweat. That is if I didn’t already own one.
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Old 09-03-15, 06:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Willbird
Landfills are not a dead end, they will be mined for resources in the future I'm sure. But consider a program like cash for clunkers that intentionally destroyed working auto mobiles the "working poor" could have used, and in return gave huge tax breaks to build net loss hybrids with a toxic wasteland of battery mfg and disposal coming from them. Makes the two CO2 ctg I have used in my lifetime look pretty trivial :-).
AMEN: Friend worked at a car dealer during this fiasco. Saw hundreds of perfectly good vehicles, certainly not clunkers, trashed. Most of the people bought bigger vehicles because newer vehicles had a higher mpg rating and thus qualified for the rebates. This divestated their used car division as they were forced to intentionally destroy working automobiles the "working poor" could have used and gave hugh tax breaks to the "better off" segment of society.
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Old 09-03-15, 07:08 AM
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I have worked with plenty of people who drove and drive about 50 miles a week to and from work, these vehicles and the spare engines (that was what was destroyed by govt mandate, the engines) would have served them well. The whole CO2 thing is a farce anyway, but dry ice is used in ice cream trucks too, and we use a LOT of it at work to dry ice blast equipment to clean it, probably a million times more CO2 than a 16g capsule.
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Old 09-03-15, 07:44 AM
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As long as we are agonizing over the trivial amount of CO2 (re)introduced into the air by tire inflators, I have a recommendation for those so terribly worried by such things: stop breathing. An average size (say 60KG) person at rest generates about 18 gms of CO2/hour or about 420 gms/day and with moderate exercise it increases to about 400 gms/hour or almost 10,000 gms/day. So, if you are really concerned about CO2 emissions, you can really make a personal contribution to reducing the problem.
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Old 09-03-15, 07:55 AM
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One of my friends ceased the Oxygen intake, CO2 exhale, this past week .
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Old 09-03-15, 08:50 AM
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Originally Posted by TheReal Houdini
I bet I could ride my bike to the local auto parts store, buy a $10 cigarette lighter powered air compressor, ride home and inflate the car tire in less time and with less sweat. That is if I didn’t already own one.
$10? really? I should keep an eye out for that. Does it push enough air to seat a tubless mtb tire?
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Old 09-03-15, 02:36 PM
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Hey, by the way. Like many others here, my aversion to Co2 inflators has nothing to do with emissions. I just get pissed when I see the spent cartridges all over the street.
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Old 09-03-15, 03:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Papa Tom
Hey, by the way. Like many others here, my aversion to Co2 inflators has nothing to do with emissions. I just get pissed when I see the spent cartridges all over the street.
That's what I'm sayin. CO2 is all around us and available for free. Tree huggers should be glad some of it is getting captured and compressed inside steel containers.
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Old 09-03-15, 03:07 PM
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... then released to get the beer up out of the Kegs in the basement, to the taps on the main floor.
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Old 09-03-15, 04:14 PM
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Originally Posted by Papa Tom
Hey, by the way. Like many others here, my aversion to Co2 inflators has nothing to do with emissions. I just get pissed when I see the spent cartridges all over the street.
Probably the same moron who empties out his ash tray at the stop sign, or worse tosses lit butts out the window so as to not soil his/her ashtray.
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Old 09-03-15, 04:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Papa Tom
Hey, by the way. Like many others here, my aversion to Co2 inflators has nothing to do with emissions. I just get pissed when I see the spent cartridges all over the street.
You know I don't think I've ever seen that. I agree that'd piss me off - I do see energy gel packs once in a while but for the most part riders in my area just don't litter I guess. Anybody who'd leave their carts on the road would probably leave their old tube too.
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Old 09-03-15, 04:53 PM
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Originally Posted by RubeRad
That's what I'm sayin. CO2 is all around us and available for free. Tree huggers should be glad some of it is getting captured and compressed inside steel containers.
First off, I'm fine with CO2 cartridges. 2nd, the quote above is missing the point. I doubt CO2 cartridges are net CO2 negative. It takes energy to compress the CO2 to that high of a pressure. Certainly less than you'd use with a couple hundred pushes of a pump handle. That's the (albeit weak) argument.
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Old 09-03-15, 06:50 PM
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From the OP: I just want to get this thread back on track...

For my own personal reasons (yeah, I'm a tree hugger), I don't intend to ever depend on Co2 cartridges as my primary source of tire inflation. I have two good floor pumps at home and an "OK" one (with a pressure gauge) on my frame. I only asked about carrying one or two Co2 cartridges with me for those times that, say, I am leading a group of newbie cyclists on an easy, pleasant Sunday ride and I blow a rare flat. I have the choice of either ruining the vibe by fighting with my teeny-tiny frame pump for half-an-hour and working up a wicked sweat -- or whipping out an emergency Co2 cartridge and getting everybody back on the road and smiling within a few minutes. I would then dispose of the cartridge properly and refrain from driving my car for a day just to level out my ecological footprint. So what's the big deal???

All that said...my only question was, IF I chose to go this route, what size cartridge would I need and HOW MANY should I expect to use to fill a 26" X 2.35" tire?
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