All I was doing was inflating my tire one second and the next second…
…my ears were ringing.
My first thought was that I had burst the tire and I gave a little curse (‘spose it was probably a loud curse but I couldn’t hear anything).
[Tangent]
If a loud curse is uttered in a garage but your ears are ringing loudly…did the curse happen?
Grumpy – care to weigh in on that one?
[/Tangent]
Since it was about 23:00 I moved quickly upstairs to reassure The Mermaids that I was safe, not bleeding, and all that.
Through the squealing E-flat in my ears I couldn’t make out any words of concern – as I approached I saw why – all snoring.
[Tangent]
Hmm, that’s slightly…well…not reassuring?!
The lightest sleeper in the house is immune to the sound of a gunshot in the garage, not 30 feet from her head. How is it then that the sound of a fly buzzing at the other end of the house causes ME so much grief at oh dark thirty?
Well, maybe a gunshot is overstating things but I can tell you that 140PSI released instantly through the sidewall of an aluminum rim, even a weakened one, is plenty loud.
I guess we’ll sleep through the next earthquake.
[/Tangent]
Having ensured that The Mermaids weren’t afraid for my life, or theirs, I returned to survey the damage.
It wasn’t the tire that blew it was my rim!
Guess I overinflated a little bit?
So – since I have to commute tomorrowtoday I set about replacing my wheels with, as it happens, my brand-new-used set of bladed spoke, Mavic Ksyrium Equipe700C wheelset which I bought from a racing buddy at work not 6 days ago. Too bad they still have the 12×25 cassette on – that’ll make for some hard hill climbing in my future.
You see, I knew my old rims were wearing thin, I just didn’t know they were THAT thin.
Anyway, long night of replacing tires and wheels aside – I am extremely glad that I wasn’t riding when my wheel failed – that could have gotten ugly in a bad way in a real hurry.
blief 
You really don’t want to get into the “snoring” but can hear a fly argument. You’ll never win it anyway…hehehehehehehe.
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Even silent curses are “heard” by the Great Grand Mother! And by God.
Don’t tempt either one of them. But, in the future, consider investing in a disc-brake equipped wheel: 1) Disk has longer life than aluminum side-rim, 2) Disk brake has zero (or negligible) loss of effectiveness due to splashed liquid/nutrients from roadway, and, 3) They look “sexy”!!
Love,
Grumpy Z
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I’m glad you were home when the incident occurred too! Whew.
And I really think you should post this under “Things Broken” and then rent yourself out to a physics lab that studies human subjects 🙂
The family can sleep because their collective pysche can now store anything sound emanating from the garage as a “Z” patriarch thing. Anymore almost no noise could disturb me from my much needed respose particularly if it is coming from the workshop area of the genetic “Z”.
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Disc brakes are not an option on this bike because the spacing of the chainstays needs to be larger for a bike with disc brakes.
Unless someone builds a disc brake system that A) mounts inside a normal hub size and B) I want to braze a disc brake clamp onto the fork…I’m clincher-brake for life on this bike.
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Isn’t it amazing what you can do with compressed air?
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