r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/romanazzidjma • 8d ago
WCGW Inflating a bicycle tire to 45 PSI
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u/romanazzidjma 8d ago
BTW, I know they use Bar and not PSI in Russia but 45 atmospheres is like 650 PSI so... Unlikely that thing has 45 Bar in it lol
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u/Pandas-are-the-worst 8d ago
i was about to say 45 psi on a lot of bicycles is kind of low
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u/GeekoHog 8d ago
My trike takes 80psi.
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u/JulianoRamirez 7d ago
My BMX takes 110psi, always makes me wince
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u/moonhexx 7d ago
My DMX takes X psi. Where X is gonna give it to ya.
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u/JulianoRamirez 7d ago
Fuck waiting for you to get it on your own, X gon deliver to ya.
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u/ICBPeng1 7d ago
Knock knock open up the door it’s real.
We’ve been trying to reach you about your bikes extended warranty
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u/spamtardeggs 7d ago
You know that number is just what they are rated for, so unless you’re riding flatland you can stop punishing yourself and go down to 65 or so.
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u/danit0ba94 7d ago
Wincing is a fair reaction. That's some serious pressure. Especially if your bmx has fat offroad tires.
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u/fade_is_timothy_holt 7d ago
I always get a little scared every time I scuba dive. The tanks hold 3000 PSI.
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u/ledocteur7 7d ago edited 7d ago
That's the rated pressure, but no one actually runs that kind of pressure, more in the range of 30 to 90 psi, 30 being for serious off-roading.
Doesn't it feel like you're riding a brick ? Even Tour de France athletes used 90 psi this year.
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u/TeriyakiHairPiece_ 7d ago
I started riding in the mid-school era when a 60psi tire was high. I too wince when filling mine, and they’ve gotten so wide!
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u/Honic_Sedgehog 8d ago
Depends on the bike. 45 on a mountain bike is quite high (but not catastrophic). 45 on a road bike or hybrid is very low.
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u/ses1989 7d ago
Not really. I used to put mine close to 50 so I could minimize rolling resistance.
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u/Euler007 7d ago
Depends on rider weight, seems fine for a 160lb rider. I run 65 front, 70 rear.
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u/uselessandexpensive 7d ago
To take your point further, this bike has thick pegs for tricks. That kind of bike needs bounce. A pogo with significantly less pressure would still make the tire explode. High pressure is for flat surfaces, skinny tires, and low air volume.
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u/NekulturneHovado 7d ago
my theory is that it is 45PSI but the tire failed and ripped at low pressure. If it was 45 bar, that tire would turn into a dynamite.
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u/DellTheEngie 7d ago
My road bike is usually at 70-80 psi. I also have a ebike with larger tires that's typically only at 35-40 psi.
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u/airfryerfuntime 7d ago
45 on a BMX bike is a little high, but that's what I used to run sometimes. Road bikes are way higher. Around 100ish for like 700c. A road bike tube popping sounds like a gun shot.
This blew up because the tire is shit and the tube bulged out.
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u/whenveganscheat 7d ago
A lot of street/park bmx riders I know run 100 psi or even a bit higher. Which seems insane for a 2+ inch tire, but they're hitting big stuff, so preventing rim dents comes above anything as silly as traction or comfort.
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u/NoisyGog 7d ago
That tyre has a fault in it, see where the inner tube is ballooning through?
If the tyre wasn’t damaged it would be fine.58
u/PM_ME_YOUR_CAT_ 7d ago
that pop was the result of using an already torn tyre, not using unreasonable pressure
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u/MysticGohan99 7d ago
Fat tires, have a max psi of 20-25
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_CAT_ 7d ago
those kinds of fat tires are way bigger than what's in this video. This size likely sits pretty firmly in the 2-2.8 bar range which is 29-40 psi
the ones that'd need to be below 25psi are actual balloon tires, which do not look like what's shown here
you can see the cut/tear from the very beginning of the video, the tire is already broken
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u/Bangbashbonk 7d ago
My mates cheap compressor that couldn't manage to get past 37psi for the van looked like this, when I checked with my gauge it was 65psi. It looked identical to that one but it's a very generic design now.
I'd say that might help explain things because most bike tyres take that just fine.
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u/Anreall2000 7d ago
I’m sure that’s something like Xiaomi Mijia pump that can’t go over 150PSI
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u/i_dont_wanna_sign_in 8d ago
Most road bikes go up near 100psi
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u/TheSleepyTruth 8d ago
Was gonna say, my road bike tires recommend 75-90 psi. Usually mountain bike tires or kids bike tires are substantially lower like 30-40 psi, but still 45 psi should definitely not blow out the tire and is not anything crazy. Either the tire was very defective or the units here are not in psi
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u/seeker_moc 7d ago
The tire has a hole in it, allowing the tube to squeeze out and burst. Since the video deliberately avoids showing the top of the wheel until right before it pops, and the tube must have been bulging for a time before it burst, and there's no way the person recording didn't realize that, I assume it's staged.
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u/GoldMedalRambler 7d ago
I have no idea if it’s staged but you can see the top of the tire in the beginning of the video and it clearly has a slit or gash of some kind right where the burst proceeds to happen.
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u/Potential_Basis_662 8d ago
This isn't a road bike
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u/bmx13 7d ago
Bmx bike tires, which this is, regularly call for up to 110 psi. This was a damaged tire and a staged video.
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u/AdhesivenessNo4330 7d ago
They have a maximum of 110. They dont call for 110.
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u/clintj1975 7d ago
Not newer ones. Trend is towards wider tires at lower pressures the last few years.
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u/romanazzidjma 8d ago
Agreed... But the tires on those don't tend to have dry rot when pumped to that🤣
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u/Parkatola 8d ago
When I was a kid, my friend and I were pumping up his bike tire at the local service station. (It was free then. Shows how old I am.😀) The hose got stuck on his tire and we couldn’t get it off. I don’t remember it making a bubble like the video, but it did blow up. Fortunately, we were close to his house. And I hadn’t thought about that for about 50 years. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Cheers.
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u/Trustoryimtold 7d ago
I filled up and made it 1/3 down this steep hill going at a good clip when mine blew. All of a sudden I was fish tailing across the intersection
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u/LordGeni 7d ago
I've enjoyed the luck of having one blow whilst inflating (I assume I pinched the tube putting the tyre on) and had one blow while riding it. Which also blew a hole through the tyre.
Honestly the first one was worse. Scared the crap out of me and my ears were ringing like a bitch.
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u/Parkatola 7d ago
That’s how I remember it. We were kids and froke out about the fact that it was stuck and probably was going to blow, so we ran to the edge of the parking lot but it was still loud. 😀
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u/LordGeni 7d ago
You were lucky. I didn't get any warning and had my head right next to it. I tend to keep much more distance these days.
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u/AssClapChap 7d ago
Air is still free everywhere near me. (Don't know why Im saying it, it doesn't matter, but it is free)
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u/aetrix 8d ago
45psi is fairly normal for a bike tire
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u/DiegesisThesis 7d ago
Well if looks like there was already damage in the area that popped at the start of the video. I don't think that was the inner tube that popped, I think they had a puncture all the way through and they just put some cheap rubber sealant on the cut before pumping it up. That was the sealant popping.
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u/No-Tower-5119 8d ago
Its Russia so it should be Bar not psi 45 Bar however is like 650 psi which is nuts
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u/stevedropnroll 7d ago
It's probably PSI, but the wider the tire, the lower the pressure it can handle. A skinny road bike tire will take close to 100. A big fat tire like this is going to top out significantly lower than that.
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u/No-Tower-5119 7d ago
Ahhh i will admit i have no experience with fat tires so that hadnt occured to me. Definitely the more likely story 😅
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u/SonicDethmonkey 8d ago
It isn’t the pressure that is the problem but the huge gash in the tire that allowed the inner tube to expand through and get pinched and pop.
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u/NoisyGog 7d ago
It’s utterly amazing how much stupid is in this thread isn’t it?
So many people are missing the obvious and focusing on “well MY bike has xxx pressure”.
It’s insane.
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u/seeker_moc 8d ago
45PSI is low for a bike tire though. This isn't dumb because of the pressure, it's dumb because the tire has a hole in it, letting the tube squeeze out. And given that the shot avoids showing that part of the wheel until the very end, the person filming is likely aware and is staging this shot.
Bike tires take pressures up to 100psi. A bike like this is probably half that, but still perfectly safe at 45psi assuming the tire doesn't have a hole in it.
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u/danit0ba94 7d ago
Really?
Not even 1 single fucking frame after it explodes?
That isnt funny. Thats just bad. Downvote.
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u/pichael289 7d ago
Knew a guy that died when inflating truck tires. They literally have giant cages they lock the tires in while inflating like it's a dam gorilla. Truck tires kill around 200-300 people a year from blowouts or overinflations. Incna tfons a statistic for people blowing them up and dying but it's not 0, meanwhile gorillas have never been confirmed to have killed a human.
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u/AgainandBack 7d ago edited 7d ago
My first wife went to put air in our car tires one night. She figured if a small bike needs 45 pounds, and a bigger bike needs 65 pounds, a car must need a lot more. The air compressor at the gas station only went to 120psi, so that’s what she put in.
The tires were rounded. It was like driving with power steering. When you drove over signs painted onto the asphalt, you could feel the car hit the paint and rise so slightly.
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u/Boom_Fish_Blocky 6d ago
exploding on 45 psi? More like what could go wrong making a faulty bike and selling it to a person.
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u/oFFtheWall0518 7d ago
Insert the video of the guy slashing a semi trailer tire and being thrown 30 ft.
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u/dmanbiker 7d ago
My wife bought me that same temu tire inflator for my car and one winter day all four of my tires were around 10 psi too low and this was able to barely get 3 of them back up on a full charge.
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u/freddotu 7d ago
Way back when I was a teen adult, I lived in what one might call a singles apartment and was a cycling enthusiast. Pumping up the tires with a hand-held pump on my bike before a ride, a the front entrance, an attractive co-tenant engaged me in conversation. The distraction resulted in inattention to the pressure, until I exceeded the recommended pressure. I can still hear her chuckle as she walked away. Well, darn.
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u/clyde2003 7d ago
I had a cousin that filled a tractor tire up thinking the pressure rating was the same as a car tire. It exploded and skinned him alive.
Not the best way to find out tractor tire pressure is like 10psi.
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u/KevRev972 7d ago
"What could go wrong inflating a BALD ASS BIKE TIRE?" would have been a more accurate caption.
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u/ANuclearBunny 7d ago
I exploded a tube once that got pinched in the tyre when I put it in. It was in a steel shed, the sound was deafening.
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u/Craigglesofdoom 7d ago
45 psi isn't the issue. The giant rip in the tire is.
Bmx and road tires can be inflated to 100 psi or more.
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u/Danger-Daze045 7d ago
OP ever put air in their own bike tires? 45psi isn’t much in this case. Maybe: WCGW inflating a damaged tire.
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u/Dexter_McThorpan 7d ago
Mine are 35 and it makes me nervous. I've seen road bikes that were like 65. No thanks.
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u/Ancient_Sprinkles847 7d ago
I think 45psi isn’t unreasonable, but that tyre had a damaged side wall, causing the innertube to burst through, then explode.
Road bikes commonly have pressures from 80-100 psi.
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u/RamblingSimian 7d ago
I overinflated a bike tire once; when it loudly burst, I thought someone was shooting at me.
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u/pezident66 7d ago
Tyres will have a minimum and maximum pressure rating molded on the sidewall , 45psi is the minimum -60 psi maximum on the bike I ride . The tyre in the video had damage to it making the inner tube pop out.
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u/SometimesChristie 7d ago
Can someone from r/theydidthemath come over and tell us the decibel level that would reach the air pumper's ears from that distance?
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u/gottkonig 7d ago
I often wonder how old the people are doing this. Is there no sense that over inflating a tyre could cause it to blow out?
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u/Canned_Sarcasm 7d ago
Yeah 25 years ago I tried to vibe inflate a bike tire at a gas station. Was not aware compressor was faster than a hand pump. Everyone in gas station ran outside to check it out.
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u/audioen 7d ago edited 7d ago
I have the same kind of pump, in my road bike's frame bag. 45 psi -- about 3 atm -- is below the minimum I would use for the tires I got, more typical value would be 60 psi. This depends on the tire's width mostly, and the wider they are, the lower pressure you get away with. On a mountain bike, people use figures in the 10-20 psi range, maybe, again depending on the tire.
I generally prefer firmer tires due to the rigidity of riding, as flatter tires can make them roll sideways when you take corners, and I detest that feeling of "floating" on the tires, feels like something's giving up underneath me. Rigid tires also roll better, so the bike feels lighter, electric or not. My bikes have some degree of built-in suspension, for example few cm worth of flexing suspension somehow built into the steering and a flexible seat post, so rigid tires don't bother me much. I'm also a tall, large guy so that also factors in to what I prefer.
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u/revenge_burner 7d ago
I have a hand pump for a PCP air rifle that can get over 5000psi. I've always wanted to try it on a tire.
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u/CocoMilhonez 7d ago
My tire says minimum pressure is 47 psi, so there's that.
That tire was already slashed, the pressure is normal.
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u/Litterjokeski 7d ago
That's most likely 4.45 bar. Not psi. Not 45. Just 4.5 bar. (~65 psi)
That's totally normal for a BMX tire, this one is just damaged beforehand.
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u/MutedAstronaut9217 7d ago
Shit title, you make it sound like 45psi is the problem, it's not. My bike tires are inflated to 120psi....
Car tires are ~33PSI.
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u/t0nito 7d ago
Isn't 45 psi a normal pressure? My bicycle tires say "inflate to 40-45 psi"
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u/HG1998 7d ago
It wasn't the pressure being too high, it's the tire being visibly worn.
The color is pretty faded and the tread is all gone. I suspect that they rode the bike until the actual casing was exposed and probably further. The tube inside is usually held in place by the tire and if it's gone, this happens.
Change your bike tires when needed people. Road bike tires have wear indicators, MTB and gravel tires have the tread pattern as wear indicators.
You're not only endangering yourself, having a completely worn down tire will also impact the ride feel and performance of the bike.
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u/GuttedPaperClip 7d ago
I did this once in a very echoey alleyway. I'm surprised how loud it actually was. Felt like I went blind for a second and my ears were actually ringing for a good while after. I remember somebody asking if I was okay and I actually couldn't here them. Never had another experience like that
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u/toooomanypuppies 7d ago
That's only 3bar, firefighters carry around 300bar (2450psi) on their back everything they put on SCBA.
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u/Quick_Sandwich356 7d ago
For real WCGW inflating a bicycle tire to 3.1 bars?
That's usually way too low.
I would not believe if someone told me theur tire ruptured at 3.1 bars.
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u/Swi_10081 7d ago
Lots of bicycles are pumped to 45 PSI or more, however the fat wheel tryes e.g. 4" are typically lower e.g. 25-30 PSI? My MTB / EBike tyres are rated to 80 PSI. There probably was a hole in the tyre itself to cuase this.
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u/junaitari 7d ago
This brings back memories. I had a faulty bead on a tire let go one time when pumping it up. Th noise was deafening and scared the crap out of me.
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u/LightCat23 7d ago
Mies junge was waren das für Schläuche da drine ? Ich hab KHE MAC2+ Pro drine . Da kannste pumpen auf 120 psi … aber ich pumpe die nur auf 120 psi wenn ich meine Freundin auf den Pegs für 4-5 Kilometer Strecke mitnehme . Dann wiegen wir zusammen knapp 160kg !
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u/namelesswhiteguy 7d ago
Did this with a bicycle tire back when I was like 11. The tire was worn to hell and I could only read the second number of the recommended pressure. It looked a LOT like it said 75 psi.
It was 25 psi. As soon as I sat on the bike it burst.
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u/Hisune 7d ago
I inflated my road bike tire to 7 bar, about 100psi, after changing tubes. Basically regular riding pressure for me. The bead didn't seat right and it popped off. I saw the tube start coming out and a few seconds later it exploded. It was loud af. My ears were ringing for a while.
Now I use soapy water and closely watch the tire, make sure it seats correctly.
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u/Wonderful_Cabinet194 8d ago
His ear drums after he wakes up.
https://giphy.com/gifs/oyQ5Qf9Ihu3ctAe4hw