Here's a video grab upon impact with the ground.. I was feeling good, using the corner to gain some position.. then I seem to remember striking a pedal, and my rear wheel lifting.. when it smacked back down on the road, it exploded. Looks like the clincher freed itself from the rim and blew out.. Back to tubulars for me?
The camera man being yours truly... Murat crashed hard today. At the beginning of the 4th or 5th lap, diving into the hard left hand corner, my rear tire blew out, and I went skidding and sliding on my left side for what seemed like an eternity. My first thought upon standing up and checking myself, was taking a free lap and getting back into the race. Then I saw my brake hoods both bent inwards, my knuckles all shredded, and my rear flat.. I limped back to the car and nursed my wounds. I will post the video soon, which includes gratuitous coverage of my injuries, post-crash.. I also recorded a few short clips of the last laps of the crit, which was won my Amos Brumble of CCB in exemplary fashion..solo.. Dan Butler of BRC (who was parked next to me at the TT) took an impressive 2nd (1st for the 35-39), seconds ahead of a charging field. And team mate Rick Kotch took the field sprint for 3rd, bagging valuable (2nd place) points for his overall placing.I counted a total of 25 isolated areas of skin loss, half of them on my hands. My shoulder, hip, elbow, wrist, knee and shin have all been stripped of skin. I bathed when I got home, and scrubbed every wound in the shower with soap.. The most pain I've felt since being hit by a car last year..
4 comments:
Hey murat
hope you are not hurt too bad.
As for clinchers, usual reasons I've seen for a tyre blowing out are
1) tyre was damaged before - from the brake rubbing slighlty
2) tyre over inflated... 110psi is more than enough for most tyres
3) you have used fabric rim tape on a modern rim. these rim tapes are too thick. The tyre bead doesn't hook the rim right. I found this one out when my front wheel tyre blew out at about 30mph at york beach crit last year.
anyway, hope you get back on the bike soon.
Kieran
Thank you Keiran..
I think my new Powetap rim does in fact have cloth rim tape- the self stick kind.. The tire- a Schwalbe Stelvio- which I installed just before the Attleboro Crit. Interestingly, it blew off the rim ten minutes later and I re-installed it with a new tube. Checking teh box revealed that this $50 tire is made in Indonesia.. Tire pressure was about 115 or so I topped it of before the time trial Saturday, and didn't add any air on Sunday before the crit. This blow out wouldn't have happened if I didn't strike my pedal. The tire blew when it landed.
Man that asphalt at ninigret is the fucking worst shit I've ever slid across. If you see the video, check the slow motion of the crash and look at the texture of the road.
yep, in the dry I can bet that surface can be sore on your ass.
The cloth rim tape was something i never heard about until a tyre blew off the rim on me ina race.. zipp for example explicitly state not to use it. It probably works fine unless there is a little wobble in the tape.
I you look on the inside you may find something like this.. works fine for 1/2 a year then when the stress is highest pops the tire off the rim.
use the clear plastic bandages to lessen the scaring and wear gloves when you race!
hope you are on the mend.
Kieran
I prefer cloth tape, but you have to be pretty careful when you put it on. It's usually a little bit too wide, but it will stretch and narrow down if you put enough tension on it. The problem is that then you have to overlap it and wait before you cut it, because it will creep back a little bit. Pedro's tape in particular seems to do this. I always tamp it down with a screwdriver in the corners to make sure I can see some metal under the rim hook. Some of the plastic rim strips are really nice, like teflon/nylon or something, but the cheap ones like Michelin that you usually find tend to eventually crack and chafe holes in tubes, hence my preference for cloth. YMMV.
And that Ninigret asphalt just looks nasty. So much loose sealer and grit.
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