On a ride on Saturday I damaged the rear tyre on my gravel bike. Looks like I was riding with too little pressure for the terrain.
At first I thought it was only a puncture and tried to repair that. It sealed easily enough but with that fixed, it quickly became clear that the rim tape was damaged as well and air was leaking out of a spoke hole. Great, just great.
So, off with the tyre, off with the old rim tape. I cleaned everything nicely and put on new rim tape, put the tyre back on, and some fresh Stan’s No Tubes Race Sealant in, pumped up the tyre and the second I hit 30 PSI, I had sealant spraying out of the side.
Turns Out™ that I did more damage to the tyre than I saw during the first two rounds of inspections. I created a 3 mm long slice in the tyre just above the hook of the rim (just to the right of the valve).
That’s a tricky spot and not even the typically dependable Stan’s sealant was able to close that one since there’s always movement in this area. Luckily the tyre seems to still be usable.
So over the next few days, I’ll have to clean all the sealant out, clean the inside of the mantle and reassemble everything with tubes. Not a big fan of it, because even running the very good Tubolito tubes will require me to ride with higher pressures compared to riding tubeless.
Ah well.
Side note:
This episode once again showed me how the DT Swiss CR1600 rims are close to bomb-proof. I have two pairs and over the years I’ve thrown serious abuse at them. Sure, they have a couple of scratches but both pairs still run absolutely true.
