hobkirk

You mechanics have lots of experience with lame customers. I've found you very helpful. You might enjoy my idiocy.

Last week I got a flat. Front, Conti GP4000S, 25mm, only a couple months old. I checked the tire where the leak occurred. I noticed some fraying on the inside of the carcass, but nothing sharp, no foreign material. New tube, pumped it up good, and I was off.

Two miles later, another flat. Same tire. Tube has hole in same place. Examining more carefully, I realize that fraying extends to outside of carcass. So I add a piece of plastic to reinforce the area. Pump up. Inspect - I can see orange! The wear is actually pretty significant. The sun has just set, so I return home. Coming down a steep descent, I get HARD thump on every revolution of the wheel. How could I have bent the wheel? But it's getting dark, so I just avoid using the brake.

In my garage, I spin the wheel. HUGE BUMP! It's not the rim, it's the tire. I misaligned my brake pads, they have worn into a wedge and snuggled between rim and tire, and they have worn through the sidewall.


PS - Now that I look at this post, I think the post itself is idiocy. Why stop now?

fietsbob

In the past , one of the features of the under the BB U brake was It was easy to Ignore as the brake pads wore..

As they got thinner the contact point moves towards the pivot, being above the rim that means the sidewall, of the tire.

Aubergine 

It's a good lesson for all of us to check that!

unterhausen

I stopped someone on the bike path because of that. It was the rear wheel though. My LBS says I have to stop doing that. Tire needed replacement, he promised to get it fixed

Brian25

From your description, it sounds like your tire bead is separating from the casing.

canklecat

I've done dumber. More often than I'd care to admit.

Several weeks ago I carefully determined the correct direction for mounting some new tires, and managed to mount them backward anyway. Twice. Both wheels. Twice. I was running out of facepalms.

My all time dumbest was 30+ years ago, deciding my hubs would roll with less resistance if I replaced that thick grease with oil. No, scratch that, not even oil. WD-40. I actually rode it that way for a day, even drafting a truck downhill at over 50 mph according to some folks following me. I stopped to check the hubs - naturally they were smoking hot. I inspected them that night, expecting to find the races scored and bearings worn down to shards of metal. Nope, everything was okay. But I used Phil grease pronto and never pulled that dumb stunt again.

I'm sure there were plenty other dumb stunts back then. Ah, to be 20something and bulletproof again.

Nowadays I don't leave the house without triple checking everything. Just in case I manage to pedal faster than 10 mph.

dabac

While I will try to follow mounting directions - if there are any, I don't think I've ever noticed any difference during those times when a hurried trail/roadside repair resulted in the tire being on backwards.

Biggest difficulty I see is - if spotted and commented on - to keep a straight face and say "the bike handles better on ....surfaces with the tire that way"....

gsa103

Been there done that. I have found that mounting a tire backwards is great flat prevention though ("I'll fix it when I get a flat").

noglider 

That happened to me. I got three flats in eight miles after no flats at all. Then after that, no flats for over a year. Then more flats of the same kind. It turned out that my brake pads were rubbing the tire, but it didn't cause a problem often, because I rarely use my rear brake.