A new (to me) bike tire failure mode

Joined
Jul 7, 2014
Messages
5,131
Location
Winnipeg MB CA
Hello all -

I had a weird bike malfunction this morning, while riding from home from church. My wife and I had ridden our fat bikes there (10 km/just over 6 miles), but on the way home my rear studded tire popped off the rim. Puzzled as to cause, I removed my pannier, flipped the bike over, and removed the wheel. After deflating the inner tube a bit, I was able to reinstall the tire easily. Unfortunately, at that point I discovered that my little portable hand pump was not working properly. :mad:

Not wanting to ride the bike with the rear tire very soft, I sent my wife on, and told her I'd walk the bike over to a bike shop in the general area, and buy a replacement pump. It was about a 3 km walk, so not bad.

When I arrived, the young lady attending the door invited me to bring my bike in, which I really appreciated; my hands had gotten very cold doing the earlier attempted repair, and I didn't fancy hauling out my cable and lock and keys. She then directed me to a young man who was also very helpful - he matched me up with an excellent portable pump which has now replaced the placebo pump.

Back in the entranceway, the young lady suggested that I use the floor pump, which I did. Got everything together, and set out. Unfortunately, within about 10 m the tire popped off the rim again. Wha...???

I let some air out of the tube, worked the tire back on, pumped up the tire again, and set out again, this time with justified misgivings. Off came the tire again. I was thinking that it had to be either a bad tire or (worse) a bad rim. (My 2014ish Surly Pugsley uses a Rolling Darryl rim, spoked asymmetrically on the back for clearance - I'm suspect it's made of Unobtanium at this point.)

I went back into the store, and the young lady suggested I get a diagnosis from Service. The tech who helped me was excellent. He quickly saw that the part of the tire that seats against the inside of the rim was badly worn, likely the result of lots of low-pressure riding. (While not thrilled, I was glad it wasn't the rim!) He didn't have a studded 26 x 4.0" tire in stock, but then had a quite brilliant brainwave - he did have an unstudded but stud-ready North45 tire in stock. I was pleased with the price ($180) compared to the equivalent studded tire (c. $330).

By this time my wife had been home for awhile, and she drove up with the car and bike rack.

I've now transplanted 179 carbide studs from the old 45N tire to the new one (and scrounged up the 180th off a different donor tire), and the wheel is back on the bike.

I wrote to the management to say that I was very impressed by the friendliness, helpfulness, and competence of the staff, and also pleased that they had what I needed to get my bike back on the road the same day.

So all's well that ends well - I should probably buy a few more stud-ready winter tires for if and when this happens again.

Anyone else had this happen to them?
 
Hello all -

I had a weird bike malfunction this morning, while riding from home from church. My wife and I had ridden our fat bikes there (10 km/just over 6 miles), but on the way home my rear studded tire popped off the rim. Puzzled as to cause, I removed my pannier, flipped the bike over, and removed the wheel. After deflating the inner tube a bit, I was able to reinstall the tire easily. Unfortunately, at that point I discovered that my little portable hand pump was not working properly. :mad:

Not wanting to ride the bike with the rear tire very soft, I sent my wife on, and told her I'd walk the bike over to a bike shop in the general area, and buy a replacement pump. It was about a 3 km walk, so not bad.

When I arrived, the young lady attending the door invited me to bring my bike in, which I really appreciated; my hands had gotten very cold doing the earlier attempted repair, and I didn't fancy hauling out my cable and lock and keys. She then directed me to a young man who was also very helpful - he matched me up with an excellent portable pump which has now replaced the placebo pump.

Back in the entranceway, the young lady suggested that I use the floor pump, which I did. Got everything together, and set out. Unfortunately, within about 10 m the tire popped off the rim again. Wha...???

I let some air out of the tube, worked the tire back on, pumped up the tire again, and set out again, this time with justified misgivings. Off came the tire again. I was thinking that it had to be either a bad tire or (worse) a bad rim. (My 2014ish Surly Pugsley uses a Rolling Darryl rim, spoked asymmetrically on the back for clearance - I'm suspect it's made of Unobtanium at this point.)

I went back into the store, and the young lady suggested I get a diagnosis from Service. The tech who helped me was excellent. He quickly saw that the part of the tire that seats against the inside of the rim was badly worn, likely the result of lots of low-pressure riding. (While not thrilled, I was glad it wasn't the rim!) He didn't have a studded 26 x 4.0" tire in stock, but then had a quite brilliant brainwave - he did have an unstudded but stud-ready North45 tire in stock. I was pleased with the price ($180) compared to the equivalent studded tire (c. $330).

By this time my wife had been home for awhile, and she drove up with the car and bike rack.

I've now transplanted 179 carbide studs from the old 45N tire to the new one (and scrounged up the 180th off a different donor tire), and the wheel is back on the bike.

I wrote to the management to say that I was very impressed by the friendliness, helpfulness, and competence of the staff, and also pleased that they had what I needed to get my bike back on the road the same day.

So all's well that ends well - I should probably buy a few more stud-ready winter tires for if and when this happens again.

Anyone else had this happen to them?
Was it wire bead or Kevlar bead? I had something sort of similar happen a long time ago on a regular bike tire with a loose Kevlar bead. Might be a defect.

I take it the tire is super easy to get on and off without tire levers? If so, that's usually a sign the tire is too loose to run at low pressure.

Also, why are those bikes tires costing so much? Holy cow! I used to pay $50 for top of the line 2.5x26 tires and thought that was outrageous.

My experience is limited with fat bikes, but I did used to do freeride and downhill biking (Whistler, North Shore, BC, etc) jumping off of cliffs and doing crazy stuff, pushing the parts to the limits. Seems like you are having a loose bead issue. Some rims can be harder to mount tires on than others, but once mounted they should all be about the same for holding the tire on.

If you can't find the answers you need here, maybe try over at MTBR.com forums. Plenty of folks over there with probably the same setup as you.
 
****... Expensive little failure you had there. Chuck, I remember setting up 45Nrth Dillingers and HuskerDus on early Surly rims and being very difficult to seat the bead. The tires were always a little loose. I was doing split tubeless and I since found an awesome solution.
My best guess is you started with a slightly loose combo that you really wouldn't notice with a new tire and running a tube. After a bunch of usage, it wore the bead until it would no longer stay seated.
How old was your tire?
 
180 is a lotta wood for a tire. Maybe it's the Canadian conversion? I usually manage to find fat bike tires for 120 or so. Not studded but my go to is Surly's Bud and Lou.
 
Hello all -

I had a weird bike malfunction this morning, while riding from home from church. ... my rear studded tire popped off the rim. ... the part of the tire that seats against the inside of the rim was badly worn, likely the result of lots of low-pressure riding. ... Anyone else had this happen to them?
Yep.

Last week I was swapping the knobby tires on my mountain bike (27.5" tubeless wheels) for gravel tires. I finished the first wheel, set it aside and was just completing the second when I heard a BANG like a gun shot. The tire I did first had popped off the rim. It was properly seated, sealed, and pressurized, not over-pressured. Investigating the tire, I found that the tire bead had internally separated/broken at the point where it popped off the rim. But the break was purely internal, inside the tire casing with no external evidence of cuts or scuffing on the casing. And I use plastic tire irons.

Chalk it up to a manufacturing defect. These gravel tires are Schwalbe G-One Allrounds. I had a second pair of gravel tires, so I mounted them. On the bright side, (A) it didn't pop while I was 50 miles out on a trail, and (B) I don't have to decide which tires to use anymore.
 
Was it wire bead or Kevlar bead? I had something sort of similar happen a long time ago on a regular bike tire with a loose Kevlar bead. Might be a defect.

I take it the tire is super easy to get on and off without tire levers? If so, that's usually a sign the tire is too loose to run at low pressure.

Also, why are those bikes tires costing so much? Holy cow! I used to pay $50 for top of the line 2.5x26 tires and thought that was outrageous.

My experience is limited with fat bikes, but I did used to do freeride and downhill biking (Whistler, North Shore, BC, etc) jumping off of cliffs and doing crazy stuff, pushing the parts to the limits. Seems like you are having a loose bead issue. Some rims can be harder to mount tires on than others, but once mounted they should all be about the same for holding the tire on.

If you can't find the answers you need here, maybe try over at MTBR.com forums. Plenty of folks over there with probably the same setup as you.
Great question - I found some singularly unhelpful specs for the 45North Dillinger online, saying that the tires are available with either Kevlar or wire bead. :unsure:

Yes, they're easy to remove without tire levers. And yes, I've run them very low - ran 4 - 5 PSI for a trek across a frozen lake. Did about 20 km like that, and then pumped them up a bit as the sun started to soften the ice. Normally I run 8 - 10 PSI in the winter.

There's a discussion on here from a few months ago about the high cost of fat tires. But hey, the bikes are so great, I'm willing to pay!

Yes, MTBR is great - NYEngineer put me onto it a few years ago. I joined over a year ago, but haven't posted anything yet. Lots of great information there.

If you mean pay $180 for a bicycle tire no.
Why I'm slowly but surely loosing interest in bikes.
180 is a lotta wood for a tire. Maybe it's the Canadian conversion? I usually manage to find fat bike tires for 120 or so. Not studded but my go to is Surly's Bud and Lou.
Currency conversion is certainly part of it - but US$120 only works out to about C$160, so there's more to it. Higher transportation and distribution costs for our spread-out population, higher taxes and wages for our retailers to pay, and on and on.


My best guess is you started with a slightly loose combo that you really wouldn't notice with a new tire and running a tube. After a bunch of usage, it wore the bead until it would no longer stay seated.
How old was your tire?
NYE, I wondered after the fact whether I might have limped home had I swapped the tire around (that is, with the L side on the R, and vice versa). The L side has a lot more weight on it, as I carry a pannier with locks, cables, and tools.

The tire was almost four years old - bought the four of them in March 2017, the day after my wife had a nasty fall on ice. Still got a few more weeks of riding out of them that winter. I'd estimate only 2000 - 3000 km on the tire. :mad:

Hey, here's a picture of one of the spoiled beasts claiming the new tire for himself!

20210228_172222.jpg
 
That’s funny. Now you can’t throw that tire out. I guess using it as a cat bed is recycling.
Somewhere I have a pic of my buddy’s dog licking his Rolling Darryls before they were laced up. We titled it Mmmmm Darryls.
A suitable rim to replace an old Darryl without breaking the bank is a 70mm Alex Blizzerk. They have dual row spoke holes for lacing on a Pugs and they have a way superior bead seat. Excellent tubeless if you ever decide to try. Sometimes they can be had for about sixty bucks a rim.
That might be the answer if this becomes a thing.
 
I'd be interested in seeing the working end of the rim. I used to have a lot of issues with one set of rims I bought where the bead seated against a P-shaped rim edge rather than a more L-shaped edge. I think that might have been an Alpina rim. I had some Michelin folding tires and the Kevlar bead would pop off quite often. However, these were really narrow rims. I asked at a bike shop and they said it shouldn't really matter.

The other thing about hose folding tires was that they were a huge pain to get on sometimes.
 
I have a stack of these rims. I'll post a pic of the bead seat when I get home. These original Darryls, along with Marge Lites (65mm) and Clownshoes (100mm) are Surly's first gen fat rims. They require a little finesse to get the tires mounted properly.
The new My Other Brother Darryls seat up much better.
 
I'd be interested in seeing the working end of the rim. I used to have a lot of issues with one set of rims I bought where the bead seated against a P-shaped rim edge rather than a more L-shaped edge. I think that might have been an Alpina rim. I had some Michelin folding tires and the Kevlar bead would pop off quite often. However, these were really narrow rims. I asked at a bike shop and they said it shouldn't really matter.

The other thing about hose folding tires was that they were a huge pain to get on sometimes.
I'll try to post a photo of the rim when I do the Spring tire swap in a few weeks, but NYEngineer knows much more about this stuff than I do!
 
8B4A81B3-0593-4266-85A3-BFAD17A877C5.jpeg


I tried to post these side by side but could not. Sorry. The top pic is a Surly Clownshoe. Same as Number 35’s Darryl but wider. The bottom is an Alex Blizzerk. Notice is has a channel in the bead seat. Much better retention of the tire. Probably slightly larger in diameter as well. Tire beads snap into place on them making it possible to run tubeless pressures down to 1 psi.
Alex makes the new Surly My Other Brother Darryl and it has excellent bead seats as well.
 
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Tho
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I tried to post these side by side but could not. Sorry. The top pic is a Surly Clownshoe. Same as Number 35’s Darryl but wider. The bottom is an Alex Blizzerk. Notice is has a channel in the bead seat. Much better retention of the tire. Probably slightly larger in diameter as well. Tire beads snap into place on them making it possible to run tubeless pressures down to 1 psi.
Alex makes the new Surly My Other Brother Darryl and it has excellent bead seats as well.

Can't tell from your photo, but here's a cross-section of a cut rim. It's really about weight, but it shows how it's extruded. None are quite like the Alpina rims that I had tons of trouble with, but the one on the left looks like it would be more vulnerable to pop-offs.


rim_wear2.jpg
 
Two rides with new tire so far, about 8 km on Friday, and 25 km today.

The bike feels great, and I feel much stronger riding.

I'd noticed the old tire wobbling in and out as I rode, and thought the wheel was out-of-round.

The new tire runs true, without "migrations" out toward the stays and back again. I wonder if the old tire had been flexing on the rim, and creating a lot more rolling resistance in the process.
 
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