This morning dawned bright and warm for February. I had to rummage some stuff around in the car and garage so while I had the garage open I pumped up the tires of the Centurion which has sitting patiently since last fall. I rode it around the block, parked it, did the same for the Peugeot, went back to rummaging. About 10 minutes later something in the garage went BANG! The Centurion's front tire had blown off the rim, a hooked-bead red-label Araya. The tire was a 25mm 700c Pasela with very little mileage.



The tire bead is still in the tire carcass but much of the rubber or cloth material to the inside of the bead tore off the tire at the blow-out point. I don't know that was the cause or an effect. In any case, that tire got tossed.

I'm just grateful it blew today instead of a week or two from now when I was halfway to work.

Offer up a sacrifice to the C&V cycling gods, you have been blessed this morning, sir. I'd just burn the tire on a stone altar, and say three Hail Eddys, as a pennance.

Bill

Rough tire mounting/removal with a tool can cause the inside of the bead to get damaged. Also a poorly seated tire can see the tire bead chafe against the rim at a spot it's not intended to seat at. We see this kind of failure frequently at work. Andy

If the tire pressure was low enough (from sitting in the garage for months) the whole tire may have shifted on the rim so that bead section was not fully seated. Pump it up to road pressure with the bead still off center a bit then buzz the neighbors would have stressed that section and resulted in the loud noise. I know this can happen with the folding Paselas. Sometimes we drop our guard and not stop and check to bead seating at about 30 psi before climbing on up to 'go pressure'. Very human.

I had this happen on a brand new tire once. Blew a hole though the side wall and knocked the tire off of the rim. I chalked it up as being a pinch flat? I had not ridden the tire yet, it sat for about 10 minutes before BOOM!

Full time shop work exposes you to much greater chances of this happening. My favorite, actually the favorite of everyone else in the room at the time, was a flat repair I had done and just finished inflating the tire. Lady boss walked up with a question at that moment while I was still holding the wheel hanging from my left hand. The discussion continued for a few moments during which time I realized the tire was coming unseated directly under my hand, but I could not drop it fast enough and the resulting KABOOM blew my semi-closed hand open. No serious damage done but the hand was numb for a while. I was pretty cautious when inflating tires thereafter.

That tire may have low mileage but, looks like it has high years of age. I've got a ton of bikes. (I've had one for almost 40 years). I've had tires fail after only 5 years. I keep a close eye on any tire over 15 years old. I replace tires over 20.