Tire feeling a little deflated
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A week or 2 ago the "bacon strip" repair I did months ago gave out at the worst time.
Returning from shopping with 3 full carrier bags worth of food and drinks. 1 in the backpack and 1 in either arm. 8PM had rolled by, temps continuing to drop and its real dark. The only positive was there was no rain or wind.
Barely 1/4 the way back when I drop off a small curb and noticed the ride quality got a bit spongy. Rode on assuming the cold dropped the psi enough to notice but coming up on a corner I felt the board begin to slip a little to the side. Okay maybe it's the additional weight and the cold dropping my psi. a few more meters on coming up to a speed bump and I feel the tire just absorb the bump and wobble as I rode off it. Tail down and up onto the curb confirmed my suspicions as a hole where a strip once nested was gone with green slime covering the tire, float plates and bits of the road.
At some point, either the drop or prior one of the strips had once again been pressed into the tire leaving a gaping hole which it once occupied. The strips typically look like this on install before you trim them near flush.
To insert you need to bore out the puncture with a special tool which helps widen the hole to fit the insertion tool and the strip.
However I have found that repeated repairs like this cause a tear to inevitably develop rendering this type of fix useless. Below is the torn hole (covered in slime).
Attempts to apply an additional strip failed and the slime would come through the tear. Those curious this is what a strip looks like on the inside of the tire. Hard to tell but there are 2 blobs sticking off the top of the tire covered in slime.
Since tires are pretty hard to come by and I've got an
addictionstreak to continue I looked for another fix. Enter the mushroom patch.
These require some rubber glue and work like a bicycle repair patch but you apply to the inside of the tire. Pull the stem through which allows it to both plug the hole and also hold it together from the inside.
Peel the blue covers off the stem and pad then apply some rubber glue all over the grey material. Use the stem to poke through the hole from the inside then pull it through so it's now flush on the inside.
I've found from experience repairing bicycle inner tubes that the glue doesn't do a great job adhering rubber passively. I gently massage the edges of the patch which helps mush and melt them into one coherent surface as shown below.
Waited a little bit for it to dry, cut the ends off flush and mounted it again for re-inflation.
Holds fine... however unknown to me there was a third previously unnoticed smll gash on the opposite side that started leaking because I removed all the slime so this weekend I'll be removing the tire again to apply a third plug.
Other than that these seem to work really well if you're willing to pop the tire off to do it.
Considering the whisper is so thin I've become accustomed to tearing the tire off easily and setting the bead at only 9psi unlike a Vega that would demand spare underwear levels of pressure.
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Applied the third patch and it now holds air dry again :) Still put slime in just in case though.
Had to replace the valve because I'm a muppet and let the slime sit in the stem. When opening to let the air out I let slime into the valve core which stops it closing properly >.>
Don't be Lia, don't let slime get in your valve stem (unless you want to try cleaning it out with something)
Forgot to mention in the prior post too, when I took my wheel off last time I realised I'd been riding with a missing hub bolt!!!!
Right rear side was gone, going off pics I've been riding with one missing for a few weeks at most... whoops.
Ordered a replacement set from C&R but not sure when it will get here so in the meantime I've been avoiding large curb drops. Easy enough since it's too cold and wet to really go carve rough.
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@lia said in Tire feeling a little deflated:
Considering the whisper is so thin I've become accustomed to tearing the tire off easily and setting the bead at only 9psi unlike a Vega that would demand spare underwear levels of pressure.
lmao
who are you?
XR's got what plants crave!
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@notsure said in Tire feeling a little deflated:
lmao
who the fuck are you?An undercover Amazonian zoomer living it up in britbong land ;)
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XR's got what plants crave!
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@notsure lmao Gal for sure.
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love the tire patch poprivets, what did you use to clean the slime out of the tire?
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Although don't quite like those kind of video edits, gotta admit there is something to it.
:: Onewheel tire sealant tests & comparison ::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtzmy4ZG8Yc&ab_channel=OnewheelFamily -
@sirgu giant railroad spike was funny. im surprised by the dilloz actually chris richardson did a pretty good video about it, but that nail shot was awesome.
