jyl

MrK.

Last October a friend and I were starting a 25 mile gravel ride. He doesn't ride much and was riding his mid 2000's Trek 900 series mtn bike. I was on my old Fuji Discovery drop bar conversion. We departed with a group and were about 1/2 mile from the start when BANG!! For a second, I thought we were getting shot at. A couple other riders pulled up and offered patches and air pumps. I said thanks but it was too far gone. My buddies back tire had a 4 inch blow out to the tire and tube. He sheepishly grinned and announced that it was the original tire and tube and he had not rode the bike since the previous years gravel ride.

Happy ending....he walked the bike back to the start. Went to Walmart for a tire/ tube and met me out on the route, parked his Jeep in the ditch and rejoined the ride. The route actually went right past his house at the 22 mile mark so we stopped in for a couple of beers. He passed his Jeep keys to his wife/ mother in law who retrieved his vehicle from the side of the road. The ride finished at the local pub where greasy burgers and copious beers were consumed.

It was a great day.

gugie 

Fisher mountain bike tandem, 25(?) years ago, hauling down somewhere on Hicks Road in Almaden Quicksilver Park. Boom, two seconds later, boom. Overheated and melted the plastic rim strips. Luckily it was a straightaway and we didn't go down. My girlfriend at the time and I ate 3 Powerbars and used the mylar-ish wrapper to patch the rim strips. Limped back home.

coolkat

5 years ago I put some brand new Kenda K35s on the non hooked rims on my '77 Centurion Super LeMans, pumped them up to like 100 psi and went for a ride. 7.5 miles from home I heard a weird sound. I bent down to look at the rear wheel and watched the tire peel itself off the rim the last little bit. It blew up RIGHT in my face. I couldn't hear for a while. And then I had to walk home 7.5 miles because I didn't bring my wallet and I didn't have a phone back then. Also I carried the bike most of the way so the street wouldn't gouge up the rim. Let me tell you, a 77 Centurion is NOT light. It's a freakin lead weight. It taught me to always bring a pump and tube.

bikingshearer 

About 15 years ago, I was heading down The Wall at the tippy-top of Mt. Diablo (the 16%+ part) on my tandem with my buddy as the stoker. BLAM Front tire explosive decompression. Bad. Very bad.

At the time, the tandem was set up with one brake lever controlling both the front and back cantilever rim brakes, the other brake lever controlling the rear drum/drag brake. I quickly discovered why this was a suboptimal set-up. The standard Arai drum brake by itself does not make a tandem slow down - it makes it accelerate less quickly. But acceleration still happens. This is especially true with a 270 lb. captain and a 180 lb. stoker. The drum brake is great as a set-and-forget drag brake on a long descent to supplement the rims brakes, not so great when it is the only brake you have.

And why was it the only brake I had? Because the very last thing you want to do in case of a front tire blow out on any bike is hit the front brake. (On a staightaway or close approximation thereof, you may be able to ride it out if you stay off the front brake. I've done it. If you have to turn, you're going to crash. I've done that, too.). On a tandem, I wasn't going to endo over the bars (unlike a single, there is far too much weight in front of the applicable pivot point for that on a tandem), but I was still very likely to wash out the front end if I hit the front brake and thereby all but guarantee a nasty crash. And since the front brake and the rear brake were controlled from the same brake lever . . . no rim brakes to be had. The drum brake and beaucoup luck was all that stood between me and my buddy/stoker and significant patches of serious road rash at the very least.

Fortunately, my buddy/stoker had to good sense to do absolutely nothing. He instantly realized that our staying upright was entirely on my shoulders: he could not be a part of the solution, but any action he took would add to my problems. So he sat still and put his trust in me.

And somehow I got us stopped. I am still not sure how. I know I worked the drum brake for all it and I were worth. I know the last 50 yards or so involved me dragging my foot along the pavement as hard as I could. I know that the tire was loose on the rim and the tube was completely torn away (leaving the valve stem and not much else in its proper place) and wrapped around brakes and fork. I know I did a mental check to make sure I did not need to change my shorts. I know my heart rate did not get below about a gazillion for some number of minutes afterwards. I know my buddy/stoker praised my bike handling skills to the skies. And to this day, I still have no idea whatsoever how I pulled it off.

We changed the tube, made our way off the Devil Mountain, and ASAP thereafter changed the brake lever set-up such that the two rim brakes each worked of their own lever and the drum brake worked of the shifter part of a brifter (shifting had been and remained controlled by barcons). It's a set-up I heartily recommend.

And no, I have no desire to repeat the experience.

2manybikes

About 15 years ago, before owning Bailey I had two cats. One night I scraped a sidewall in the dark and forgot to look at it when I got home. I put the bike in a bike stand in the living room, and fell asleep in the recliner right next to it. One of the cats was also sleeping nearby. In the middle of the night the tube finally made it out through the hole in the tire. BAM it sounded like a 38. being fired in the room (not exaggerating, I have owned a .38). The cat was never the same after that. She almost never went back to that room. I think the cat dented the ceiling..

CliffordK

Last summer I decided to take my funny bike for a Eugene to Portland ride (about 150 miles each way). I was using the rear wheel off of the Colnago C40 at the time. The tire on it was worn, and I think 25mm, but the Funny Bike fit a 23mm tire better. So, I mounted a brand new Conti Gator Hardshell 23mm. Probably blew it up in the cool evening the night before, then hit the road, and temperatures and pressures rose somewhat.

Around mile 70, just outside of Jefferson, Bang, lost that "new" rear wheel, blown sidewall. Not much in Jefferson, so I had a choice of about 15 miles backtracking to Albany, or 20 miles ahead to Salem. Fortunately, It was still relatively early in the day.

So, I stuffed a rag in the tire, and taped it up with electrical tape and headed down the road. I found a no-stretch synthetic material flag that went into the tire, and a few more revisions of the boot, and I made it the 20 miles to Salem where I found a bike shop still open that stocked my 700x23 tires. One of the issues was the narrow chainstays had a tendency to rub with any bulge.



I probably could have made it a little further, but it would have been a very long trip if I had to ride that boot all the way to Portland.

jyl

The rim shown above is a Mavic Open Pro that has done about 7 years of commuting in Portland. It was very concave at the brake tracks. I replaced the front hub last year but thought I'd get another year or so from the rear. This morning I took the bike for my commute, noticed the tires were low, inflated the rear to 140 psi instead of my usual 120 psi for no reason, and 12 blocks from home about a fifth of the rim edge circumference blew off in a graceful arc, locking up the rear wheel. I put the bike on my shoulder, walked home, changed shoes and drove to work. The wheel is at Velocult for new rim and spokes as I'm too busy to build it myself. There was about 1 mm of rim wall thickness where it separated.

I had a tube blow the tire bead off the front rim on this bike during a descent of Mt Tabor. I was going about 25 mph. Surprisingly little drama.

Kovkov

Few months ago i was rebuilding a bike for my sister. During disassembly i checked the deflated tires for cracks and stuff but they looked fine so i decided to inflate them to see what happens. They inflated fine, so i leaned the wheels to a wall and started working on other parts. After an hour or so i hear a crackling sound from the direction of the wheels. Taking a look i see that the sidewall on one of the tires starts to crack open. Thought that i would have time to quickly deflate it but no chance, the second i grabbed the valve the thing blew out. Thanks to the concrete walled room my ears were ringing quite a while. Next time i hear that crackling sound i'll just stick my fingers into my ears, step back and wait *lol*.

rhm

A few years ago Timmy T and I did a week long tour of central NY state that took us from NYC up to Lake Ontario and then into the Adirondacks. I was riding my new-to-me Holdsworth that I had converted to 650b. New Panaracer Col-de-la-Vie tires. The last day we started out with a long descent from pretty high in the Adirondacks down into the Hudson Valley, bikes heavily loaded, riding fast with the help of gravity and a tailwind.

Stopped for a snack at Saratoga Springs, found a park with toilets and water, leaned the bike up against a picnic table, and BLAMMO my front tire blew out the sidewall, separating from the bead for several inches.

Glad I wasn't screaming down the mountain when it happened. Glad I had a spare tire. No big deal.

jimmuller 

When pumped up tires let go they let go loudly. I've had at least half a dozen tires go Bang! Some as I was pumping them up, some while the bike was just leaning against something.

I sometimes worry that a tire will blow at a public gathering. I envision people dropping to the ground and screaming, police running, me standing there sheepishly until they lead me away in handcuffs.

top506

While winding up a long hill BANG! Pasla blew off a old Weinmann rim at about 100 PSI (yeah, I know about hooked rims now....). Blew the wire bead from the casing. Glad it wasn't on the other side of the hill.

Top

thinktubes 

bikecrate

I was changing a tube in my garage. When I remounted the tire I must not have seated it in properly. I was pumping away when I noticed the tube expanding out of the side of the rim. I made the classic slow mo "Nooooooooooo" as I reached down to relieve the pressure. Too late. It blew up a few feet from my face. The enclosed space of the garage really amplified the sound. My ears were ringing for a while.

DrIsotope

Back in my days of running Gator Hardshells. This occurred in the middle of a righthand turn, at about 20mph. When the tire gave out, the rim hit the ground instantly, tacoed, and high-sided me off of the bike. It happened so quickly I felt like the bang of the tire and whack of my helmet hitting the ground happened in the same instant. Yes, that tire is turned inside out.




This one was far less dramatic, but it was very, very loud. 700x35 Panaracer Gravelking SK, running tubeless @ 55psi. Blew a hole in the sidewall big enough to fit my thumb inside. Rim went straight to the pavement, ground off about 6" of the bead on both sides of the rim. But I stayed upright, so I call it a win.
The first pic shows the initial point of failure, the second shows where the rim cut through the sides of the tire pretty effortlessly when all my weight came down on it. Manufacturer defect, replaced without issue, have been using the replacement for months.

gugie 

Yikes!

ollo_ollo

One hot Summer day, near the end of a 14 mile shakedown ride on my Bianchi Trofeo, one of my new Gommitalia Targa's blew off the rim with a good imitation of my Colt .45 Combat Commander.

A pedestrian dove for cover, and some guy in a sports car peered over his steering wheel, as I hopped off and sheepishly began a mile long walk home. Still have the blue tin in my shop. Don

ollo_ollo

Actually my Gommi's were solid blue, that's a pic I just swiped off the Bay. Don

tiger1964 

IIRC the late 80's and I had not been riding much at all for a while and friends asked be to go on a ride. Taking a look at my cruddy collection, I put one set of wheels on another bike just to get one rideable on very short notice. Alas, tubular wheels and the tires were shot, wouldn't hold air. So I pulled the track tires off the Zeus and glued them onto the road wheels and off I went.

OK, but after I got home, one blew, big time. In the basement. At 2AM. Did I mention that the bikes are stored directly under the master bedroom?

noglider 

When I was in high school, my bike lived in my bedroom. One night at 3am or something, my tire blew off the rim. It was an unpleasant awakening.

non-fixie 

Drillium Dude 

@scozim and the results of a blowout on the Trail of the Couer d'Alenes. Came outta nowhere - quite startling as it sounded like a gunshot!

DD

thumpism 

Blowout story coming, but my least favorites were when riding sewups and hearing that sudden and often slight "Pfffttt!" followed by the harsh feel of the rim on the pavement. Always a drag.

jimmuller 

My most recent bang event occured in mh office, which is really a small conference room off the engineering lab. A bunch of co-workers came to see if I was okay...

gaucho777 

One hot day last summer, I was about a mile from home, when...BANG! My tubular had separated from the base tape and the blowout ripped right through the stitching on the tire casing. When the explosion happened, there was a poor lady walking nearby on the sidewalk with a baby stroller who let out a terrified scream. So, it was more like BANG, AAHHHH!!!