Angelfishsolo
A Velocipedian
- Location
- Cwmbach, South Wales
Stiffling laughter and tea pouring out of my nose!!!!!! My ex had a friend who though that the tyre lever was a crank handle!!!
Ears still ringing!
- Thread starter smokeysmoo
- Start date
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Stiffling laughter and tea pouring out of my nose!!!!!! My ex had a friend who though that the tyre lever was a crank handle!!!
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smokeysmoo
Legendary Member
- Location
- Bolton, not very far from Nob End
I've only flown once with my bike, but I was advised to deflate the tyres when I packed the bike up, (used an Alan bike box). I just did as I was told as it caused me no hassle, but then someone else said the hold of an aircraft is not pressurized like the cabin so it shouldn't matter. Does it, doesn't it? I don't know.
What I do know though is I certainly don't want to hear that bang at 35,000 feet
Arch
Married to Night Train
- Location
- Salford, UK
I've only flown once with my bike, but I was advised to deflate the tyres when I packed the bike up, (used an Alan bike box). I just did as I was told as it caused me no hassle, but then someone else said the hold of an aircraft is not pressurized like the cabin so it shouldn't matter. Does it, doesn't it? I don't know.
What I do know though is I certainly don't want to hear that bang at 35,000 feet
The hold not being pressurised is WHY you are told to deflate tyres. At ground pressure, your tyres can hold the pressure partly because of the outside pressure holding them in. Take that external
pressure away, and the pressure in your tyres increases, relatively....
Although I'm sure I've heard recently that there isn't always a need to deflate them. Some holds or areas of holds are pressurized - they have to be to carry animals, for example.
D
Deleted member 1258
Guest
Many years ago we were in Italy on a coach holiday, the day before we left for the UK one of the pasengers brought a large pack of crisps for the journey back. The journey back took us through Switzerland and up over one of the high mountain passes, by the time we got to the top of the pass the bag of crisps had blown up like a football. It then deflated on the way down the other side.
It then deflated on the way down the other side.
Globalti
Legendary Member
Er.... the holds of all large aircraft are pressurised. An aircraft fuselage is a long torpedo shaped sealed cylinder with a big bulkhead at the back, beyond which is the tail with avionics etc. As the aircraft climbs the pressure drops until it reaches 10,000 feet, at which point the fuselage is effectively sealed and pressure is maintained to the equivalent of 10,000 ft by the engines. At the atmospheric equivalent of 10,000 ft there is enough oxygen available for sedentary passengers, even unfit ones. If only the passenger compartment was pressurised it would be immensely complicated and expensive to seal the floors and the pressure differential over that floor area would mean it would need to be extremely heavily built to resist exploding downwards into the unpressurised hold.
Deflating your tyres for flying is a waste of your time. Would you expect your tyres to explode if you rode the bike over an Alpine pass at 10,000 feet? No you wouldn't. Even if a tyre did explode in the hold because it was faulty, what damage would it actually do to the aircraft?
Packets of crisps and peanuts do inflate but I've never seen one burst in a 'plane.
If a door seal fails the oxygen masks will drop down and the pilot will descend fast to a height where there is enough oxygen to breathe. It's never happened to me but a colleague experienced depressurisation on China Airlines once. He said the dive was more alarming than the loss of pressure.
doog
....
- Location
- The beautiful south
I was going to argue that the hold is pressurised but having seen previous threads degenerate I decided not to..
I have read that there is a slight increase (14psi max)...this may well have sent my very fragile tyre over the edge as it was at 90 psi but still well within the tolerance of the tyre.
What Ididnt know at the time was that the tyre was too big for the rim. It was only when I started rolling out of the airport with 20kg of pannier weight that it went.
I am in no doubt that this may have caused some alarm on the plane and would have left me deeply embarrassed. However Ryanair dont tell you to let the tyres down before flying!
I have read that there is a slight increase (14psi max)...this may well have sent my very fragile tyre over the edge as it was at 90 psi but still well within the tolerance of the tyre.
What Ididnt know at the time was that the tyre was too big for the rim. It was only when I started rolling out of the airport with 20kg of pannier weight that it went.
I am in no doubt that this may have caused some alarm on the plane and would have left me deeply embarrassed. However Ryanair dont tell you to let the tyres down before flying!
BrumJim
Forum Stalwart (won't take the hint and leave...)
- Location
- Selly Oak, Birmingham
Skip lorry had a blow out just by my office window here. THAT was a loud bang!
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smokeysmoo
Legendary Member
- Location
- Bolton, not very far from Nob End
It wasn't the airline that told me to deflate, (Jet2), I can't remember who excatly told me, might have been the guy at the shop I rented the bike box from. Anyway, I didn't mean for a pressurisation/de-pressurisation argument to ensue 
It was easy enough to deflate them, and simple enough to re-inflate them, everything got there and back in one piece so I was happy
It was easy enough to deflate them, and simple enough to re-inflate them, everything got there and back in one piece so I was happy
- Location
- The TerrorVortex
That's absolutely right. Standard atmospheric air pressure is about 14.5 psi.
If you inflate a tyre to 100 psi on the ground, then took it into space, the internal pressure would now be 114.5 psi, and it would be fine.
Night Train
Maker of Things
- Location
- Greater Manchester
Chilternrides
New Member
I helped a mate re-inflate the tyres on his under-used bike early on a Sunday morning outside my house - Enormous BOOM at a little under 80lbs psi, and some fairly disgruntled neighbours were the result (07.30 on a Sunday - oops!).
The dozy twonk didn't tell me until it was too late that the thing had been pancake flat for the whole of winter with the weight of the bike on it.
On a more serious note, the mention of the lady with the car tyre accident has reminded me that there is something I still do out of habit:
I spent several years nailing aeroplanes (real ones) together and maintaining them - it was impressed upon us that during tyre inflation, you should always position yourself either directly fore or aft of the wheel, but never alongside the wall of the tyre in case the thing did blow; I still aproach tyre inflations that way, be it car or bike tyres although apart from the incident described above, I've never seen it happen; what does make me uneasy is when I take a car in for new tyres and watch the mechanics inflate them usually with their faces right over what I was trained to understand as the danger area.
The dozy twonk didn't tell me until it was too late that the thing had been pancake flat for the whole of winter with the weight of the bike on it.
On a more serious note, the mention of the lady with the car tyre accident has reminded me that there is something I still do out of habit:
I spent several years nailing aeroplanes (real ones) together and maintaining them - it was impressed upon us that during tyre inflation, you should always position yourself either directly fore or aft of the wheel, but never alongside the wall of the tyre in case the thing did blow; I still aproach tyre inflations that way, be it car or bike tyres although apart from the incident described above, I've never seen it happen; what does make me uneasy is when I take a car in for new tyres and watch the mechanics inflate them usually with their faces right over what I was trained to understand as the danger area.
coffeejo
Ælfrēd
- Location
- West Somerset
Cyclopathic
Veteran
- Location
- Leicester.
Perhaps she was in the process of being run over at the time the tyre exploded. It would explain her death and how it came to be in her lap.