I had a lucky mishap the other day. 

I say lucky because this happened when I was not moving!

I stopped at a filling station about 40 miles into a ride and decided it was a few days since I had checked pressure on the Tyres. As I tried to get the airline adaptor to seal on the valve something caught me eye that it didn't look right then PHEEEEWWWWWW the core of the valve shot past me. 


What had caught my eye was the rubber parting from the brass core. Luckily I was near an independent bike dealer I know he picked me up in his van and returned to his workshop where a new valve was fitted.

I completed a further 275 miles that day without further incident. 

The valve was replaced at the previous Tyre change and it had less than 2k miles on it. 

Lucky it didn't happen 5 mins later when i was blasting up the motor way at Warp factor 6 (K....rpms)

Don't waste your money on lotto tickets you have used up your allocation of good luck for a few weeks.

That's why I use metal valve stems.

I had a right angle rubber pull through one fail where it goes through the rim. It failed at 100 KPH on the highway, the bike became hard to steer and to change lanes I had to lean. I knew from previous experience what was going on so I kept the speed at 100KPH until I hit the town. It was still stable at 80KPH it wasn't until I dropped under 60KPH that it started to head shake. A can of sealant managed to get me to a local bike shop although I had to keep topping it up. I'll only use the right angle metal bolt in ones now. The reason i believe it failed is the when checking or inflating it pushes the valve over eventually weakening it which leads to failure.
Regards Martin.

sad story with a happy ending Will

thank heavens your ok   and the culprit is found and rectified

cheers

Hi Will glad to here you are OK but I was amused to see a similar topic recommended  

    
K100-forum.com » Technical, repair and troubleshooting » Frame, fairing and wheels » Thar she blow's !!!!
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» Will Sharapova blow the job again?

Martin's right; a puncture at speed on tubeless tyres is pretty much a non-event - had a few (too many). It became a standing joke at the tyre fitters that for around four years I hadn't worn out a single tyre. One had only lasted ten days before it was shredded by a big lump of steel. Fortunately I broke that run of bad luck last year and it looks like the tyres on LFB might actually get to the finishing line this year too.

Dai wrote:Martin's right; a puncture at speed on tubeless tyres is pretty much a non-event - had a few (too many). It became a standing joke at the tyre fitters that for around four years I hadn't worn out a single tyre. One had only lasted ten days before it was shredded by a big lump of steel. Fortunately I broke that run of bad luck last year and it looks like the tyres on LFB might actually get to the finishing line this year too.

Non-event?  I know a couple who both spent months in the hospital after going down at speed in freeway traffic from a sudden loss of tire pressure.

I've had a few myself over the years and survived but a lot of that is just plain luck because they happened in situations where I was able to ride it out.  Under different conditions any of them could've been "not fun."

Tubed or tubeless tyres with a tube in? Either of those is pretty catastrophic. Perhaps you're right and I should add a qualifier: 'compared to a blowout on a tubed tyre a puncture at speed on tubeless tyres is pretty much a non-event'.

The couple I was referring to had a rear go while riding a K100RS 2-up so it was a tubeless tire.

I was told by a tyre guy the first time that I had sudden air loss on a rear that the centrifugal force kept it up at speed. I would rather have a rear than a front go as it was a lot easier to control. And the stiffer the side wall the better off that you are. The last time with the front I had to ride about a K to a servo which didn't have detergent as most OZ servo's do and didn't have sealant. Had to phone the wife to come out and we went and got a can of sealant. I found that the trouble with the sealant was that you had to ride for so many K's a reasonable pace in order to get it to seal. Very hard to do in town, and I had to keep topping it up to keep it semi stable. Once at the bike shop they said that the right angle rubber pull through valve should not have been fitted. They had previously fitted the tyre with that valve, I no longer go there for tyres.

Regards Martin.

In 43 years of road riding I've only had one sudden front tyre deflation, but have had several rears go. A tyre fitter proposed that the front will often flick the object up and straight back into the rear, his theory as to why there are arguably so many more back tyre blowouts over fronts.

That eerie feeling of suddenly riding on grease and the bike wagging slowly from side to side is one I will not soon forget when the back tyre deflated at speed, but the front failure was frightening! I lost all ability to steer or countersteer and luckily was going only about 50mph and headed straight, so I was able to gently nudge the bike with as much and as little body language towards the kerb and a grassy verge. I didn't touch the brakes and came to a gentle rest without dropping the bike.

The most recent rear tyre (tube) failure was me leaving a remote campsite on my '77 Airhead and inattentively riding through a stone cold campfire's remains - no prizes for guessing what the previous occupants had been burning. Up at the roadside, once I'd discovered the back end felt strange when I reached the tarmac, I removed a large nail and there were signs of 2x4 scattered in the ashes. Luckily, once I had sufficient air in the tyre, I was 'only' a few hundred metres from a campstore with an air compressor as I was in the Gila mountains of southern New Mexico. The BMW-supplied air pump took 500 pumps and I still couldn't seat the bead after replacing the tube. Come to think of it that was in about 1998, so it's been twenty years since I have had a tube-type tyre go flat. I drove around a queue of cars at a light into the gutter and picked up a nail in a brand new Metzeler Z8 radial on my K1200GT. By the time I got back to the workshop where I worked the tyre was slowly losing air. I stayed that night after work and replaced that $200+ tyre with another new one. I never did attempt to use a plug or glue a patch inside. It's not worth it over the long run.

Knock on wood.

I'm running pretty well 50/50 between front and rear flats. As you found out no steering at speed with the front, you can only turn by leaning. Once you experience this you need to think ahead because once you slow right down, you get pretty good violent bar shakes which need a firm grip. If you do have to brake, which I don't recommend but sometimes it might be unavoidable do so lightly with the rear only.

My experience with rear deflation was the rear started to feel a bit squirmy on gradual bends and once slowed right down also slightly squirmy on corners. It was no where near as scary and I rode it home easily, I had only a K to go. I suspected a rear flat and used the front brake carefully, once home my suspicions proved correct. I think there would be differing symptoms between differing sidewall construction. I have never run radials on any bikes, but I believe they would have more sidewall flex leading them to be a more scary experience.

Regards Martin.

45 years ago i had the rear tube blow out on my first road bike, a Honda SS125. I was probably going about 60mph, and the bike veered across the road, ending up in a wide gateway. Lucky for me there was nothing coming the other way, because there was no way I could keep it on my own side of the road.

So glad you re okay. That could have been waaaaaaay worse. I always get side when I hear of a rider that goes down. Conversely.. I love happy endings! Now... back to your regularly scheduled warp factor!

I’ve only had one flat - a rear on BOB the Blue Old Bike on the 2017 Northern Ride. The tyre was on its last legs, and thin enough that something unknown punctured it. Nothing dramatic, just a feeling of vagueness. Wasn’t even sure it was flat at first. Happened on a sealed road.

Help from the Krew got it plugged, and I’ve guaranteed it won’t happen again by getting my own plugs and little compressor. 😉🤞

Bill