Originally Posted by
atnyc
Recently, I had TWO flats back to back, on 2 different bikes. Both were from rim strips pulling away from the hole for the valve. In both cases, the exposed edge of the hole slowly ate into the inner tube at the base of the valve stem, eventually the valve stem broke off.
My question for those of you who keeps bikes for more than just 2-3 years, have you seen that being an issue? Do you replace your rim strips after x years/miles as a regular maintains item?
Originally Posted by
hydrocarbon
Hell, no. In my experience, rim strip failure is always a fit and/or quality issue, not an aging issue. If you get the good tough stretchy-plastic stuff in the right width from Schwalbe or whatever, they'll basically last forever.
Besides, rim strips aren't designed to protect the valve stem from abrasion on the rim exge in the first place. Sounds like a misaligned valve due to incorrect installation, and/or or riding with an underinflated tire which allows it to displace slightly around the rim under hard braking and drag the tube with it. You could also try rounding off the sharp drilled valve hole edge in the rim with a Dremel tool or something to reduce the likelihood of future incidents.
Rim tape can go bad. This was off of Mom's bike a couple of years ago. It probably was 40 years old.
I agree with @
hydrocarbon, a failure at the valve is unlikely a rim tape problem. You may choose to deburr the valve hole. It should only take a few minutes with perhaps a chainsaw file and piece of sandpaper.
Make sure your valve is exactly perpendicular to the rim. If it is angled a bit, you can let the air out and carefully slide the tire until it is back straight.
Sometimes if a tire is underinflated, the tire will slide sightly and angle the valve again. So, a bad valve could be a secondary sign of a different flat.
Other than the rim tape above that absolutely disintegrated, my most common reason to replace rim tape is the rubber stiff that breaks at the valve.