New Tires

So on Christmas eve i was on a 42 mile bike ride, with a couple of friends, when at about mile 25 while riding at about 21-22 mph my rear tire blew out. I was able to pull over safely and pulled took the rear tire off. I wondered what the cause was, the trail we were on was well taken care of, and there was no broken glass or anything on it. as i looked all around the tire it quickly came apparent as to why i had just gotten a flat, my tires were worn out. there was an area about 3 inches long that you could see that the tire had gone thread bear, and you actually see daylight through some of the tire. So the resourceful people that we are took some of the old tube, and glued it to the bottom to the tire, to make a barrier between the tire with a hole in it, and the new good tube. We put the new tube in, air it up using those neat CO2 cartridges that i have never used, and got back on the bike. we have about 16 more miles to go till we were back at our vehicles.

I had gotten pretty confident with our repair, and really started to crank on it again, when about 11 more miles into the ride, the tire blew again, at first i just tried to ride on the flat, but that was no good the tire was starting to come off the rim. So we decided to try to fix it again, this time we put a patch on the tire then three sections of tube, before we put the new tube it. Filled the tire up and got going again. this time i could feel the spot where all the patches were each time my tire rolled over that spot. but we where able to make it home safely, it kept me from cranking out a real good sprint at the end though, i was scared that it might blow on me again while riding at almost 30mph, i thought that could be pretty dangerous.

That afternoon after the ride, i picked up some new tires for the bike. and all is better.

Moral of the story take a look at your bike before you head out on a ride, make sure everything is in good working order. including checking your tires, b/c you can wear them out.

Running Most