Tire Pressure
 

Hi guys, I was wondering about tire pressure ratings...when a certain tire is rated for lets say 80-120psi, does that mean past 120psi the actual tire will explode, or the tube? Does the tube even have a range of pressures, and if so, it must be a lot greater than the tires, no?

And...if I'm biking on not so smooth terrain and I'm at 120psi (the max), should I be more careful as the tire will be more prone to exploding, or have the tire manufacturers already taken that added stress into consideration?

You are less likely to flat if you keep the pressure to the max limit.
There is a factor of safety engineered into every tire.

Enjoy

Hi,

The max PSI rating for a tire is the maximum pressure the manufacturers feel is safe for that tire. If you inflate it beyond that pressure then you may suffer a blowout of the tire at some time (which could be dangerous, depending upon what you're doing at the time!).

Lennard Zinn talks about tire pressure here: http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/...es/7508.0.html

Basically the consensus seems to be that you don't have to run your tires at the max PSI for optimal performance.

Cheers.

Half of that tire/rim interface is the rim. So what's the pressure rateing for your rim?