Well not quite. One thing I love about commuting and cycling is its never dull, nobody who drives a car in or gets the train ever has as much fun as I do getting, (or not sometimes), to work.

I recently bought a pair of Ultra Gator Skins to put on my new Salsa la Cruz, and after I gained some confidence with the huge wheels I thought its time to take off the stock Cross tires, (training tires I called them), and switch to the skinny gatorskins.

Anyhow on my first ride in I was delighted by the increase in speed and impressed with the sharp looks of these beasties, but being a mountain bike man from way back, I was still scared to really jack the psi up, (I have never inflated a bike tire up to 100 psi before). The next day I thought what the hell time to really go for it and pumped the front up to around 115psi and the back one a litttttle more, (hitting 120psi). Then removing the nozzle of the pump I noticed the core of the presta valve had simply vanished, scratching my head I peered closer, and just as the thought, "well I've not seen that happen before I wonder where it went?" crossed my mind..... my face inches from the valve.... BANG!!!

The tube had exploded! Almost blowing my beanie off and forcing 3 cats all to try and exit via one cat flap at lightspeed

Took me awhile to figure it out, then I realised that I had forgotten to swap over the inner tube, and was still running the stock 28x5/81 1/4 tube that came with the bike! Lower PSI I guess

Cue me: frantically getting out of my superhero bike clothes into the jeans and t-shirt of my mild mannered alter-ego Train Commuter Man and running down to catch the train with seconds to spare...

I must admit I had a grin on my face for most of the morning despite missing my bike commute in

I own a very large and powerfull aircompressor. I have the regulator set at 140 psi so I can fill my road. One day I went to top off the tires on the kiddie trailer and the tire went "KABOOM". Those things are loud when then blow.

I heard the tires they use for military aircraft can actually blow limbs off if they explode. No idea if true just what I heard

yeah I couldn't believe how loud it was! Didn't help the tinnitus either

They are dead serious that a aircraft tire can rip limbs off if it explodes.
A car tire can do it at 35 psi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K1jm...eature=related

We had a bike tire explode at the LBS today. Somebody overinflated a trailer tire and it sounded just like a gunshot. I thought for sure we were being robbed.

Truck tires are often inflated in a cage, to contain the tire in case it comes apart during inflation.

I blew up a 20" tire when I was a little guy. I was at a gas station waiting for that next ding and all of sudden - ka-blewie! It was a long walk home......

Oh screw the tires, I'm still laughing about three cats and one catflap.

I used to work at a surface coal mine that used some of the really huge earthmovers - tires ten to twelve feet in diameter. If you've heard a bike tire go at 100 psi, you can imagine what a ten-foot tire on a four-foot rim with tread two feet wide sounds like when it goes at 100 psi.

We never had an injury due to tires, but a few people die every year in the surface mining industry due to exploding tires - often due to welding on the rims without properly depressurizing the tire.

My friend's brother was inflating his truck tire (called a split rim) at a gas station. The mechanic told him he should use the cage. they guy said he's done this many times. The tire blew and literally took have his head off. He died instantly and never knew what hit him.

Pics or it didn't happen?

cats or inner tube? I can do them but Father in law is renovating my lounge at the mo so I can't recreate the cat exodus. pics of inner tube to follow


edit: surely you want my pics not one of the guys head being blown off?

On evening a while back I was sitting right here wasting time, and heard a loud BANG!! from the other end of the house. Got up to see what it was and was informed by my oldest that a bike tube not held by a rim and tire won't hold more than 20 psi.

We've had a rash of blow-offs building the BSO's (bike-shaped objects) at the Big Smiley-Face; a couple were due to the bad beads they come with sliding off the rim (I'm SERIOUS!), BUT ONE WAS REALLY SCARY -- a 12" Huffy toddler bike. Inflated to about 30-35 psi -- and the CASING SPLIT ALONG THE CENTER OF THE TREAD! Tube blew out right through the hole. When we looked at the thing, there was so little rubber in the casing that fibers were visible all around the inner!

We still have that turd on the wall....

At 200psi, they can rip through an airframe and bring down a plane.

Both! The more porn the merrier!

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One kitty still suffering from shock:
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The Beanie that almost blow off:
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Several reasons for this.... for one, my steer tires on the truck are inflated to 120 psi and the drive and trailer tires at 110. Heck of a lot of pressure (then drop all that weight on top of them - about 4500 lbs per tire). But, the original reason they started using cages for truck tires was because the tire rim was 2 separate pieces that would come apart on inflation if not assembled correctly (only one piece wheels these days).

I've never blown up my bike tires...... but, maybe I should get the mech's at work to build me a cage for the bike tires.

I had a truck tyre blow as I was 2 or 3 feet from it on the motorway, overtaking at 70. Absolutely terrifying, and the blast actually rocked the car! Took me a minute to figure what was going on (this wasn't like a gunshot, it was like a bomb going off), and then I noticed that the truck next to me was decelerating fast and limping off the road. Put my occasional bike tyre explosions in perspective!

Off topic but hopefully helpful- Continental recommends its 700x23 gatorskins to be inflated at 110psi even though the max is 120. When I first got mine, I instantly inflated them to 120psi and got a flat on my first or second ride with them. I have the wire bead version so reinstalling the tire was a hassle. I've since run them at 110psi and I've had no flats. The ride is really nice as well.

I've since learned that running a tire at its max psi under the presumption that more is better is a noob mistake. This is because the ride is more jarring and the higher-pressure, stiffer tire can't adhere to the road as well; it can't deform around the irregularities of the pavement and when it doesn't, traction is compromised.

Scary isn't it? Even scarier when it happens while you're riding the bike, but then again I wouldn't want to have a tire blow out inches from my face either.

Most of my flats have been slow leaks or kind of fast leaks; but I had one major blowout years ago (probably late 80s). I was riding sew-ups on my racing bike that I usually inflated to around 100-110psi. I knew the tires were nearing end of life, so I was probably running lower pressure. I remember thinking that the tread was getting worn pretty thin, so I'd better replace the rear tire ASAP. Well, I didn't replace it soon enough and the rear tire blew out while I was riding along at 15-20mph. It sounded like a gunshot and the back wheel bucked up into the air several inches (while I was in the saddle). Fortunately the glue held the blown tire on the rim and I was able to keep control and pull off to the side of the road. There was a dime-sized hole right in the tread. Before that experience I would sometimes ride tires until I could see the treads, but after the blowout I always replaced tires as soon as they looked really worn. I'd hate to experience that kind of blowout at high speed, or at any speed on the front wheel.

Sean

I've learned that you can sometimes hear the tire announcing the impending boom.

You have to inflate the tire in a very quiet room and you will hear noises from the tire. Little cracks and pops. I think I may have gotten a tube somehow folded or twisted in the tire before inflation and didn't take time to seat it .

When the split rim "goes" it is not the tire that "explodes", but the split rim that splits apart catastrophically. There is a steel "ring" that fits into a groove in one half of the split rim and holds the 2 halves together. At high pressures the ring can come off "instantly" and with high velocity. This steel ring is what kills pretty well instantly.

I repeat..... It is not the tire that explodes when the split-rim "goes"...

For safety, tire shops have a steel "cage" that holds the tire upright (as on a vehicle) and the tire can be safely inflated in it and then installed. Any truck-tire shop SHOULD have one. Take a look at it, and the construction of the split rim - and the steel ring. Then imagine the force of that ring hitting someone - and killing them :-(

Not using a cage makes a "tire inflater" elegible for the so-called Darwin Award, and unfortunately often rightly so..... Apologies to the survivors, but .... safety FIRST.

That trailer tire wouldn't have been on a Burley would it? We had one in our shop that had come really cheap 20" plastic wheels, suppossedly they could handle 35psi but god forbid you try to put that much in! We had two blowouts before we decided that 20psi was about all they could handle.

Also a "Slimed" mountain bike tire makes for an interesting blowout, loud gunshot sound and green goo everywhere!