I burst a tire today!

[lph]

Boy, did that ever make a bang :eek:

Luckily I wasn't on my bike at the time, just sitting on a bench chatting with some colleagues, with my bike laid down in the sun. Then an almighty POW!, like a gunshot, and it took several seconds until I figured it could be my bike. Yup, burst tire, and a tube in shreds!

[redrhodie]

Oh, isn't that exciting! I had that happen once. It took me and the cats a while to figure out what it was. I thought the sky was falling! In my case, it was because the tube was pinched.

[zoom-zoom]

A couple of years ago my hubby was doing a group ride with friends and DS and I went down to meet them at a nearby ice cream stand. While we were sitting there I thought I heard a gunshot, but it turns out one of the guy's tires had burst--same thing, the bike was just laying in the grass. Wow, was that one heckuva bang, though! :eek:

[OakLeaf]

Yikes!

I did that a couple of times in high school, before I realized I probably ought to use a tire gauge when I aired my tires from the gas station compressor and then parked it in the hot sun... :rolleyes:

[PamNY]

Oh, exciting. I heard one explode last week. Very impressive. Glad you weren't on the bike.

[ridenread]

I had that happen last year. Actually had a guy in a truck turn around because he thought it was a gunshot and wanted to make sure I was ok.

[lph]

You guys are the best :D Nobody else but cyclists would go "Ooh, isn't that fun when that happens!" :D

[buffybike]

At least you weren't riding it! That happened to a friend on a group ride...he suffered a broken scapula and three broken ribs.

Was it the heat from the bike lying in the sun that caused it??

[Biciclista]

are your ears still ringing?

[PamNY]

You guys are the best :D Nobody else but cyclists would go "Ooh, isn't that fun when that happens!" :D

:DI tried to tell a few non-cycling friends about the tire burst I witnessed. Major conversation fail.

[kmehrzad]

I was putting air in my bike tire using a compressor. At the time I was INCHES away from the tire when the tube burst. My neighbor ran over when he saw me grab my ear. I literally could not hear for a good 15 minutes out of one ear after experiencing the blown tube.

[MartianDestiny]

I blew one once while trying to mount new tires. Pinched the tube and so of course *POW!!!* in the middle of the living room with all the roommates around. They, of course, didn't find it near as amusing as I did. :p

[loopybunny]

Is it wrong that I actually laughed a little reading this?

[malkin]

I'm in the Big Bang Club too!

I was riding along and the noise scared me so I clipped out and jumped off of my bike. It took me a beat to figure out that I had not been shot and then another beat to figure out that I wouldn't just be getting back on my bike to ride home.

Fortunately, home was only a block away.


(I was 5 when JFK was assassinated, and I sort of have it in mind that people are shot much more often than they really are.)

[Bike Chick]

This happened once on a group ride to a cyclist I was standing next to. I about jumped out of my pad!!! It's amazing how loud it is and so unexpected.

[ninerfan]

I had a tire burst a couple of years ago and was actually on my bike at the time :eek:. Fortunately I was approaching a stop sign on a relatively quiet street so my speed was pretty low. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had been going at a good clip. Glad you weren't on your bike!

[Atlas]

My partner is a bike mechanic and I think he's done some permanent damage to his hearing with all the tubes he's heard pop. We were just talking about it this morning because a co-worker of his is recently back from Iraq and doesn't fill up tires to the right pressure because he gets upset over the gunshot noise if they explode.

[DebW]

It's easy to blow tires with a compressor if you're not careful. If you use a hand pump you can usually notice the tire starting to rise off the rim and have time to let some air out. At the shop I worked at in the 70s, we'd blow several tires every week. Some weeks we blew so many that when one mechanic headed for the compressor, the rest of us ran the other way. Where I work now we use hand pumps and I haven't had a single tire blow, though I've had some rise off the rim and had to let air out real fast. BTW, patched sewups can blow sometimes if the repair stitching isn't good enough.