Quote Originally Posted by DebW
Was your tire bulge on the road-contact part of the tire or the sidewall or was the bead slipping off the rim? How old was the tire? Sometimes sidewalls start to get thread separation and develop a bulge. If on the road-contact surface, I would suspect either a defective tire or some major road damage that wasn't visible. In any case, you need a new tire and a new tube. Tubes always have gaping holes after a blowout and are unpatchable. I've been around hundreds of exploding tires, but the majority occur while inflating with the bead not properly seated.
The bulge was off toward the side a bit but not really on the sidewall. The blowout hole was on the road contact part of the tire. I had a spare tire at home so I've replace both tube and tire.
So I take it the problem was with the tire not the tube, right? I thought about replacing the tube when I saw it but didn't know if that would help. At that point I just wanted to get home...safely. So an exploding tire wouldn't cause the bike to veer off course suddenly? Since all my previous flats occurred slowly when on the bike, having the tire just lose all air suddenly like that seems like it would be different than a slow flat.