Tubeless tires are like cancer

 Tubeless tires are like cancer: I hope no one gets them especially anyone close to me. I hope that anyone who has them gets rid of them and never gets them again. Some lifestyle factors increase susceptibility. As someone who heals the sick among bikes, I have to figure out how to deal with the incurable cases even as I do my best to eradicate it in the patients who can be saved.

As with every other metastatic technological tumor in the bike industry, tubeless has mutated a lot since the old UST days first thrust it into the marketplace. As something that did not interest me in the least from the outset, I have tried to ignore it as much as possible, except to counsel against it at every opportunity. This I continue to do. However, some people just won't quit their vices. It makes them feel good! It's worth whatever it costs them! Shut up, we're fine, leave us alone!

What gets me are the innocent victims. They're like downwinders from old nuclear weapon testing grounds. Yay, the bomb makes us mighty and the explosions are stupendous to watch! Now the kids all have bone cancer.  Sheeyit. Riders who know no better than the latest gushing write-ups on one site or another are enveloped in the toxic cloud of misplaced confidence and addicted braggadocio. We're all doin' this stuff! Pack your nose with it! Or marinade your liver.

"Keep it up and that stuff'll kill you."

"Shut up, I can handle it."

Or maybe, "It's too late for me. I can't quit it." And the disease takes them.

Today I discovered another gap in my education when some poor idiot dragged his bike into the shop around 12:45. El Queso Grande had finished his lunch. I looked forward to starting mine. Instead, I responded to the entreaty of this vacationing mountain biker who couldn't get his rear tire to inflate properly.

"I only have a hand pump," he said. The bike had been sitting for a while, long enough for air pressure to drop on its own, as it does. The front tire bead was still seated, but the rear had broken loose at least partially. I could see smears of sealant in places on the tire sidewall and on the rim. I could hear it on the brake rotor, too. Either that or the chronic Shimano mist that afflicts some of their brake models, leading to raucous squeals. But that didn't concern him. We both theorized that, if the tire and rim setup was operable I would be able to seat the bead with the compressor.

"That's the thing about tubeless," I said. "If it's not totally perfect, you're totally fucked."

With the compressor, I got the beads to snap into place and the gauge to rise to 35 psi. Air whooshed into the rim as the tire rapidly deflated. It wasn't perfect. It was very fucked. When I pulled the bead back to look into the rim I could see that most of the rim tape had pulled away from the edges and collected in a wrinkly wad in the center channel of the rim. Not only would this never hold air, the sealant all over the well of the rim and inside the spoke holes meant that drying it sufficiently to install new tape to tubeless standards would require possibly days of drying after cleaning. Any little sealant ninjas inside the rim would attack the tape from beneath. Sealant is the biggest weakness of tubeless unless you have a solid-floor rim that doesn't depend on the glue bond of tape in a constantly wet environment.

When I showed the customer the mess, he readily agreed to have me put a tube in so he could salvage the rest of the day. I was hungry, but I was already covered with sealant, so I figured finishing the job would be better than making the guy wait while I shoved a sandwich down my gullet without even chewing it. It's just a tube job.

It was more than a tube job. The tire itself had about two ounces of sealant still in a puddle, plus another ounce or more spread all over the inside of the casing. There was also a stupendous "dead leech" of dried sealant adhering to the casing where it had sat for however many weeks or months the guy didn't ride the bike. That's another thing in the fine print about tubeless: If you're not going to be riding the bike for a few weeks, you are advised to remove the tires, and clean and dry both the tires and the rim. Hang the tires separately. When you are ready to ride again, remount the tires with fresh sealant. Hope it works. Forget just grabbing a quick ride on a nice day. Most people don't do that, which is how you get a dried lump of sealant like a dead hamster at the bottom of your tire.

I would have pictures to go with this, but my phone is too full of pictures of my cats. Every time I take a picture now, the phone barrages me for days with notifications to sign up for the cloud and put my pictures there. Actually, here's a lump from earlier this year. This one looked like cat puke.

Anyway, after I had mopped out as much sealant as I could, rinsed the casing with water, and blown it dry with compressed air, it wasn't dry, but it wasn't dripping anymore, either. I inserted the tube in the casing and began remounting the tire.

The first bead went on okay, but the second bead kept coming back off as I tried to work it on around the circumference of the rim. I finally managed to fight it all the way on. Time to inflate it. Tubeless tires make very scary noises as they seat, because the tire bead needs to snap into the little shelf designed to help underinflated tires stay on the rim as a rider goes over various lumps and bumps. Mountain bikers run the lowest pressures and go over the biggest lumps, followed by gravel riders. Roadies generally operate on the smoothest surfaces, but not always. They tend to run the highest pressures, or the least low, given that tubeless is designed around running low pressures compared to how we used to go. 

You can't go by the pressure range that the tire manufacturer puts on the sidewall. On certain rims, like those monumentally stupid hookless ones, or carbon rims in general, you'll be picking tire bits out of your eyebrows and digging carbon shrapnel out of your face if you get anywhere close to the pressure range that the tire casing itself will withstand on a hook-bead, alloy rim. Which brings us to today's new-to-me information about Stan's rims.

As I tried to seat the bead on the tire I had just mounted, I could feel the finish line and almost taste my delicious lunch, just as soon as I could get that last stubborn bit of bead to pop out to where it was supposed to be. On every other tubeless setup I had mounted -- and, much as I hate them, it has been dozens by this time -- I had done what mechanics have always done, and what the instructions often say: seat the bead by going to the top pressure and then let air out after the tire fully seats. This tire said 60 psi on the sidewall. 

Words fail to describe the blast that hit my ears as the tire let go and the tube disintegrated. The word blast takes too long to say, but bang is too insipid. It certainly got the attention of everyone in the building.

 I could hear and speak, but everything sounded like I had a plastic bucket over my head. I was ready to give up on the project, and the customer, who had been right outside the workshop when the tire blew, was also ready to surrender. But then El Queso Grande -- who had already eaten his goddamn lunch at least an hour earlier by this time -- came around the corner to ask reprovingly whether there wasn't something I could do to salvage the situation.

My first impulse was to slam the wheel repeatedly on the edge of the bench until it was a complete wreck and then hurl it out into the parking lot. But it wasn't the poor technolemming customer's fault that tubeless sucks and Stan's rims suck. What I really wanted to do was slam the designer's head against the bench a few times. Instead, I dug around for a tire. 

Around this time I found the teeny tiny print on the rim that said "do not inflate above 38 psi under any circumstances." Information that could stand to be more prominently displayed. But I guess the cool kids love to read up on this shit. Actually, when I typed "Stan's rims suck" into Google, I got lots of hits corroborating that, for a number of different reasons, including the ridiculously tiny bead area that releases tires explosively if you exceed the low low pressures they set as the maximum. They ain't kidding!

I got the tire on and started to turn toward my long-awaited lunch when El Queso Grande brought me the pedals the guy had bought while he was waiting for the tire job. One more hurdle before that sandwich. His old SPDs were pretty well graunched into the cranks, because of course they were.

So now I know about Stan's rims and their violent allergy to what should be perfectly acceptable tire pressures. Ever more appropriate that Stan's is based in Big Flats, NY. Big, explosive flats. Next time I have a patient with those rims on top of every other tubeless complication, I'll know what I should have known already from obsessive compulsive media consumption about all things bikey. This line of work doesn't pay nearly well enough to justify the need for continuing education like this. Meanwhile "safer than the road" mountain biking just sent another local rider to the hospital for more than a quick in-and-out at the ER. I haven't heard whether his collapsed lung has reinflated yet. This is an expensive damn sport.

Coming up in the near future: Riding that saves you money versus riding that costs you money.

My hearing recovered quite a bit by the end of the day, but certain pitches triggered weird harmonics and overtones. Then on the ride home the wind noise did really strange things. If I have to go to an audiologist, it is absolutely a worker's comp claim.

Quitters

 "I don't feel safe out there."

"The roads are so narrow."

"People are all on their phones."

"Someone I know was killed."

These are just a few of the lines I hear from the quitters: the people who are getting rid of their road bikes because they don't enjoy being out there on the travel ways that we all pay for with our taxes and have every right to use. If they're in the shop, these quitters aren't quitting cycling outright. They're just being intimidated into leaving the public right of way to go play on various closed courses, or highly limited corridors like what passes for a rail trail around here.

Most of the time, I overhear the conversation between the quitter and a salesperson on the retail floor while I toil away in the repair shop. It makes a weary day wearier.

To be fair, if I lived in Wolfeboro I would probably come to dislike road riding, too. Every time I think about moving closer to work I think about the severe limitations on riding, imposed by the hills and water bodies that have shaped the road system since colonial times. The typical New England road has a white line and a ditch. Combining that with resort-area traffic in the summer makes road riding increasingly stressful as what used to be a rural area gets overrun by creeping suburbia. We're not seeing too many cookie-cutter housing tracts yet, but the attitude of drivers, and their numbers, make the roads busier in all seasons, compared to how they were in the end of the 20th Century.

Creeping suburbia extends to my area as well, but the terrain of the glacial plains allows for longer sight lines and some degree of wider roads, and the lack of particular geographical attractions, like top-tier lakes or brag-worthy mountains means that most people on the roads are just passing through. But we do have our dinky rush hours. And GPS has turned the road in front of my house into some kind of "secret" escape route for southbound motorists when Route 16 is choked with traffic.

One quitter this week said that a friend of hers "passed away while riding on the road." Passing away is something you do in your sleep. Even if you die from natural causes rather than the smashing trauma of a motor vehicle impact, if you're mounted on a bike when you have your stroke or heart attack you're going to hit the ground hard. People are funny about death. If your friend's terminal experience was horrendous enough to get you to give up a form of cycling that you say you loved, say "killed." Give it the full horror and outrage that it deserves. Highlight this side effect of humanity's bad decision to prioritize the passage of motor vehicles over the health and safety of nearly everyone and everything else.

Other riders quit the road because of physical limitations that accumulate with age and injury. Some retreat gradually through upright bikes that replace their drop-bar models. Some go straight to the e-bike. Some try mountain biking. Some head straight for the path.

There are very few transportation cyclists around here. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the most persistent, and I ain't shit compared to real dedicated car-free people in areas and occupations more conducive to it. My occupation has been quite supportive of my cycling fixation. It just pays so horribly that I can't recommend it to anyone as a long-term program. But other people, better people, in generally more populated places, manage the synergy of a decent-paying career and a bike for transportation, to demonstrate how the world could be a better place for productive citizens, not just dilettante fuckoffs with silly dreams.

Transportation cyclists seem less inclined to quit than recreational riders. When you just do something for fun, you stop as soon as it is no longer fun. There are days when transporting myself across the necessary miles isn't a lot of fun. A couple of days ago as I rode down Route 28 I tried to estimate how many miles I've logged on just this route. I'm sure it's more than 40,000, possibly as high as 60,000. That may seem like a lot, but it's over 32 years. My average annual mileage wouldn't even make the charts among real year-round transporters, long-distance tourists, or anyone training to race. It's just the result of stubborn, stupid persistence. My total mileage in that time is far higher. I used to ride more for fun. And I didn't include the training miles I log to get ready for the commute or to stay in some kind of shape transitioning into winter. The 40-60 figure was just on the principal commuting route. 

I don't push myself as hard as I used to. When I pushed myself harder, it didn't feel as hard. I was younger. The key to longevity as a road cyclist -- aside from not getting crushed by a motor vehicle -- is avoiding debilitating injury. Especially with a somewhat long route, a dedicated bike commuter is an athlete with more than just the riding career depending on completing the course, day after day. So I go ahead and take the car on the grossest days. Recovery is key, and an aging body doesn't recover as well over a single night, especially if the aging rider has gotten too frisky the day before. Commuting turns into a time trial. Oops! How did it get to be so late?! Oh well. I'll sprint this one as hard as I can and promise to do better tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, stomps in this hectic pace to the last syllable of yet another work week.

The rides are frantic, sandwiched around days so incredibly tedious for the most part. But you go from moment to moment of reward, finding something of value in the neck-deep mud of your own created predicament. And be glad because the mud so far remains below your face. If I could have imagined anything else in sufficient detail, while there was still time to implement it, I would have done it. So without real complaint -- just a continuous profane grumbling and self reproach -- I get on the bike for another day.

We interrupt these brake cables...

After I spent hours cutting these interrupter levers into the brake system on my old road bike, the next commuting week offered no opportunities to try out the rig until the very last day.

It takes some creative packing to fit my standard commuting load onto a bike with no racks. I'm not ready to go full racks and fenders on the old road bike. It would just be a watered-down version of the Cross Check, not even that much lighter once I hung all the nerd-rigging on it. Just setting it up with frame pack and expander seat bag is enough of a handicap on its sporty capabilities.

After a week of shortened commutes -- park-and-rides fit around various schedule conflicts and stormy weather -- I expected more of a feeling of speed and power when I set out on the racy bike with cleated shoes and all. The fact that it was exactly a week since I had dropped a 10-foot log on my ankle while bushwhacking through a Class VI road on the previous Sunday's commute probably held me back. It's amazing how much your ankle swells up after something like that.

I had gone to check on Bickford Road, a very mellow line through North Wolfeboro, unfortunately abandoned by the modern world. I had first gone through it in 2011. In the fall of 2016, I went back to do a little stealth pruning and found it badly washed out. But I knew that some locals go through there in their trucks, so I hoped that they might have done some heavier remedial work on it. With the Cross Check and walkable shoes, I figured I could get through one way or another.

The road was in bad shape, with multiple blowdowns across it at different points. Feeling curiously adrenaliny, I attempted to heave two broken sections of a fallen birch out of the way. The longer piece slipped out of my hands and nailed my leg.

As a good uninsured American, my first thought was, "How expensive is this going to be?"

"Don't need stitches! Don't need stitches! Don't need stitches!" I said to myself as I reluctantly brought my eyes to focus on the wound. I gingerly tried to part the reddening gouge down the center of the ridge of swelling that had sprung up immediately. The news was good: no flaps. But the jagged end of the log had scraped the front of my shin, drawn this gouge down the medial side of my ankle, scraped down along the Achilles tendon, and pummeled the soft tissue hard enough to make it numb as it increased steadily in size. And I was miles into the woods, alone. I pulled my sock up for whatever compression it could provide.

Even uninjured, I would have been unable to ride for the next mile or so. The road was a rocky stream bed. The rocks were slimy and black with algae. There was standing water in some places, deep mud in others. The temperature seemed to jump up 20 degrees as mosquitoes and biting flies swarmed around me in the stifling, windless air. It was a fever swamp.

I had limped and trudged to where the road improved enough to remount and ride, almost at the junction with Stoddard Road. I still had to ride ten miles home to ice and elevate my ankle.

The numbness didn't subside for several days. After it did, the nerves decided to catch up on the pain they'd been putting off. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I didn't feel like a powerhouse, cleated shoes and all. The bike felt good. It was nice to have the auxiliary braking position. I've really gotten used to that.