Here’s the story - last winter I put my road bike on the trainer, totally neglected it, never pumped up the tire, did 2500 miles, never popped a tube. This winter, put the new P2C on the trainer, always stay on top of the tire pressure (~100 psi), am using a conti trainer tire, and I’m now replacing my 3rd tube. One of them was catastrophic, the other two have just been empty when I go to ride the next time.
I’m currently using the Shimano wheels that came with my P2C. This most recent popped tube has a 1/8" slit on the inner diameter of the tube. There are no visual burrs on the wheel and the tire appears to be in good condition still.
What could be causing this that I’m not thinking of?
If you have a slit on the inside of the tube, it has to be the rim strip. if you have a plastic rim stip, it often fails and you can’t normally see it. When you pump up the tire, it will open the failure and blow out after a while. Where were the holes on the other failures?
Edited to add:
If you want a fail safe rim stip, get e Fonde De Jante. The heavy cloth stip will not fail in this manner. Ever.
Very interesting, didn’t know that. The wheels have the green Vitorria rim tape that does appear to be plastic.
I’ll order some and replace it in a couple weeks when it happens again.
I have had this problem, and I think in my case it came from the tire slipping around a little on the rim while on the trainer. When it slipped it would pull the tube at the valve stem and cause a small tear at the base of the stem. Low tire pressure makes this worse but you are already on top of that. So my solution was to excessively baby powder the next tube, and I tightened the little nut on the valve pretty tight against the rim, in hopes that if the tire rotates it won’t take the tube with it, and that has done the trick for the past two months of indoor riding.
Should that solution fail, I have one of these tubes on hand:
I ordered this thing and it is ENORMOUS!!! It’s so thick and heavy it looks like a tubular tire. But I run a cheap 28 width tire on the trainer and if it blows again, I’m stuffing that garden hose of a tube in the tire and hoping for the best.
Don’t forget copious amounts of talc, helps the tire and move against each other especially on a trainer where there is much deformation from the roller.
Tire
Tube
rim tape or possibly a spoke/ nipple that loose and flexing back towards the tube, on shimano rims the nipple deep in the rim so I doubt that the case if if you have loose spkes,
There has been a bab batch of tubes this year past year, Many suppilers where affected, could be you have some.
Had the same issue as you w/ Shimano rim. I would flat just about every trainer ride. As the others have said, use talc to reduce friction and change the rim tape. I went with Velox tape.
Thanks everyone for all the info. I actually installed the little nut on a whim last night, so that might help a bit. Somehow, I had made it this far and never heard of the talc powder trick, so that will go on the list along with the new rim tape for next time.
I have been having a similar problem with the conti home trainer tire–it is very tight and after i ride a while i get a snake bike flat from the tube being pinched by the tire. I tried tons of talk with no luck, I today used a ton of soapy water, we’ll see if that works. It’s a godawful tight tire.
If it blew the tire off, the tire bead was likely not properly seated. Same with some of the other failure descriptions in this thread. Pump the tire to 30-40 psi, check that the tire is properly seated all the way around on both sides, release pressure to about 10 psi and pump to proper pressure. Check again for proper seating. The tire should be even all the way around the rim. There isn’t a magic brand of rim tape. If you’ve checked the tape and tire, I’d bet on installation error.