Tire Death Kabashes Ride to Loomis Presentation

HiWheel bikes don't get flat tires, the wire holding the rubber on to the rim just fails and it walks off the rim like what you see here. Lucky for me, I decided to write the newsletter you saw in here earlier today instead of riding wet roads and moody skies to Apple Computer to see  the slide show  Don Loomis's did of his 2004 Mayors' Ride run. Something was telling me not to risk it.......

Don, a software engineer rode a recumbent, towed a trailer and took copious notes and lots  of photos as well as video. Great stuff!! HERE is the blog he set up to document that ride as well as other journeys of his.

To the right just below is Don on the bike he rode. 

As for my wheel, I came home after about five miles of which the last two I had to be very careful not to let the tire fall off the rim which would have meant walking. I called Jim Spillane to see if there was anything I had to be mindful of when I put in new wire and silver soldered it all back together. He suggested I file away any burs that might exist on the two set screws on my Wiedeman Tool. And guess what? They did need to be smoothed out so they wouldn't gouge the wire causing  it to break, a problem he knew I had been having.

Getting inside the tire was next. As soon as I cut the wire at the gap, one side instantly receded back into the rubber. I managed to get vice grips on the other side and got it extricated.  To get the rest of the wire, I had to cut the tire.  And as a result, when I rebuild it tomorrow, I will have a two piece tire (and yet there again, I've run as many as 4 pieces for a tire).

I did not expect an inner wire with two welded joints, though. That's right, one of the welds failed, while another stayed intact (I took the picture you see to the left to prove it)*. And yet there again, both of the welds (really silver solder connections) were beautiful but at an inch and 1/4 apiece, they were both too long. Or as Jim Spillane says you don't want more than 3/8 of an inch for this because it places the wire under a bigger area of impact. Which is why the wire broke right where the weld ended as you can see to the right here.

All of which means, I won't be riding early tomorrow...

          THX 4 all of U!!  

* I talked to Jimmy Jr on Friday AM (the next day) and he sez that while the practice of splicing  two wires together is borderline acceptable, the 1-1/4 welds were definitely not his. The whole inner wire assembly was  so old it was almost frozen solid, so hmmm .......