Old 01-20-21, 12:13 PM
  #178  
cbrstar
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Location: Canada
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Bikes: 1988 Kuwahara Newport, 1983 Nishiki, 1984 Diamond Back Viper, 1991 Dyno Compe

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Originally Posted by 2_i
I have different bikes that I ride on different occasions. Sometimes I do not use a bike for 2 years, sometimes locally and sometimes because it is away from my central base. When I pump the tires again after 2 years, nothing blows up and then nothing after another 2 years. I have racks of tires and boxes of tubes of different age. Yes, the rubber ages, but not on the scale of a year, but a decade and that depends on details, as was discussed. Various devices in everyday life have rubber rollers inside and belts and you do not run all the time changing them. Yes, eventually they will die but the time scale tends to be such that at the everyday level you can forget that they are there. For vintage bikes, aging rubber and plastic can become of a concern.
Maybe I am wrong? Reading up I was kind of surprised to read cold air preserves tires because it slows dry rot. And I was also surprised to read that rubber actually expands in cold temperatures. I'm just going off my own observations where I have stored tires and bikes in my shed only to find hairline cracks in the sidewalls of the tire next spring. Where as the ones I've kept in my house are still in great shape. The other thing I have encountered is my GF put some tires in the furnace room, and a year or two later when I wanted to use them for a classic build they were ROCK hard!! I attributed it to heat from the furnace but there must be a different explanation.
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