I had always thought that bike tires should be pumped up to rating printed on the side of the tire (4.5bar, in my case). I got to work a bit late last week and the entire bike parking area was full so I parked it against a bike rack on the footpath but in full sun (the day was about 40 degrees Celsius). I came back after work to find my tire badly damaged (the side wall was badly damaged) and it was completely off the rim. The tube was also absolutely destroyed inside the tire (see picture). This is so far beyond any puncture damage that I’ve ever seen.
At first I thought the bike had been vandalized, but a colleague said it looked more like the tire exploded. Is it realistic that this would happen? There was no other damage to the bike and I was at our downtown headquarters parked with hundreds of other bikes. I didn’t see any other damaged bikes, so vandalism would have been oddly random.
If this can happen, what is a realistic amount to lower the tire pressure for a summer day?
by spill73
2 Comments
100% can happen.
Pressure can greatly increase if you pump it up while it’s cool out, them it heats up outside. And a black tire sitting on pavement in the sun is going to end up hotter than the ambient air temperature.
As for pressure, there’s plenty of calculators that’ll get you a better number using tire size and bodyweight.
Maximum pressure is honestly gonna be too high for most people.
I have the same thing happen with those continental inner tubes. Mine split on me while riding and blew tire off rim. Lucky I wasn’t going very fast at the time. Looking at your photo it split in the exactly same place.