BIKE UPDATE: THE VALUE OF PREMIUM TUBES

The bike will be up and running Monday night.

This latest mess taught me a valuable lesson. Because of the  long time since I had my last flat tire, I had become complacent about the risks of tire failure when help is far away.

In spite of having a top notch tire and having it lined with Kevlar the bike ended up crippled by a flat tire. "How did this happen?" I thought - on the long walk home.

Even the best of tires eventually wear out. This actually happened and I had a tire go flat. My bike guy replaced the tire and replaced the old tube with a standard tube. Ordinary tubes are distinguished by their lack of uniform thickness. That means it will have thin spots. This would come back to bite me. I had a second flat the first ride out after the repair.

Bicycle tires are constantly being impacted by irregularities in the road. An impacted tire causes a compression in the tire and tube resulting in an abnormally high tire pressure at the impact point. If the tube has a thin spot at the point of impact the resulting extremely high pressure will cause a tube to burst.

When a tube bursts the tire immediately goes flat. At regular bike speeds (20 kph) one can bring the bike to a stop quickly but at e-bike speeds (35 - 40 kph) it takes longer. This greatly increases the risk of rim and tire damage. In my case the increased stopping distance was very hard on the tire and caused the tire bead to be damaged and resulted in a broken and protruding bead wire. This protruding wire slashed the tube to such an extent that resulting gash rendered the tube irreparable.

The upshot of this is that from now on I will install only the highest quality tubes and, of course, carry spare tubes when far away from any help. 

My new tube: 

Rated as the Most Durable Bike:

SV21 BICYCLE TUBE by SCHWALBE 

Made of butyl rubber, Schwalbe tubes are both resilient and puncture-resistant on the trail. 

These tubes are made with a higher-quality rubber than some more bargain-oriented models.

These tubes have superior resistance to both thorns and pinch punctures and the overall tough feel of the tubes gives me confidence in their durability.