Sewing a tyre

[SpaceCaptainTheodore]

I know that those who have succumbed to the madness of tubeless will sometimes sew larger holes to allow the sealant to do it's devilry, but what I am not clear on is whether this is a 'get-me-home' thing or a proper fix.

I have a tyre with a small but significant hole, and the thought of writing this tyre off makes me quietly sad. I am considering sewing it and booting it (or something like that) and prolonging it's life, perhaps as an emergency spare for touring.

What I'd like to establish, ideally based on experience rather than speculation, is whether this is viable and if the fact it's tearing on the bias is a red flag.

Thank you!

[axel_knutt]

I don't think that'll last long, there's quite a lot of bracing torn.

[andrew_s]

If it was mine, I'd put a boot in; a ~3" section of worn out tyre with the beads cut off, positioned to the side so the bit under the hole was tread rather than sidewall.
If the sidewall bulges significantly when the boot is in place and the tyre is fully inflated, the casing is damaged enough to call for replacement. How much bulge is "significant" is a matter of judgement.

Drawbacks:
If left in for long enough the edge of the boot can chafe the inner tube enough to puncture it. In an ideal world you'd shift the boot a few mm every couple of months to spread the wear (I don't try to glue them in place).
Sometimes you can feel a slight bump - bump - bump as the boot goes round the bottom of the wheel.

[tim-b]

Bin!
What size is it and where are you? I'm sure that someone will have a better used tyre that you could keep for a spare, I certainly do

[simonhill]

I am considering sewing it and booting it (or something like that) and prolonging it's life, perhaps as an emergency spare for touring.

I work on the basis of always having the best I can when setting off on a tour. Often replacing half worn tyres etc. I don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere or somewhere spares are hard to get.

This also avoids carrying excess (any?) spares. I'd never bother carrying a cobbled together old tyre on tour.

[cycle tramp]

Bin!
What size is it and where are you? I'm sure that someone will have a better used tyre that you could keep for a spare, I certainly do

To be fair, yes you could keep the tyre.. and perhaps last week's copy of the telly guide, and I'm sure that you'll find a useful for the 2" x 3" block of wood which was left over from your last d.i.y project...
..in this direction madness lies and its possible that in 3 years time you'll be sleeping in your hallway because your bedroom and living room are full of stuff that might be useful that you can't actually get in the rooms.

...admittedly I have half a shed full of bike bits. However that's my limit. I don't want any more and I'll consider myself lucky if I do enough cycling to use half of these spares before I shuffle off my mortal coil..

..if you can't realistically see yourself using the damaged tyre in the next year, then take it to you local recycling centre and by a new tyre - they make more everyday, y'know...

[SpaceCaptainTheodore]

Thank you everyone.

I think I knew this really but didn't want to admit it; partly because I hate throwing things away, partly because I seem to have afforded a strangely emotional attachment to this specific tyre. I need to watch out for the hoarding old crap tendency before I end up like my Grandfather did!

As it is, I have other part worns I can use for the purpose stated. Guess I need to figure out what achingly hipster, not quite functional tyre re-use I can attempt before giving in and sending it to the council's shiny new high temperature incinerator

[SpaceCaptainTheodore]

Ah, I see cycle tramp pre-empted my tendency as I was writing.

[DevonDamo]

I had a 1" long cut on the side-wall of a mountain bike tyre. I decided to repair/reinforce it as the tread was still good and I try not to throw anything into landfill until I've exhausted all repair possibilities. I did the repair by gluing an internal patch made from strong material. (I won't specify which material I used, as that would definitely derail this thread, but the glue was a very strong contact adhesive used for drysuit repair.) When I finally retired the tyre 2 years later, I'd worn the tread down to nothing, but my patch-repair was still going strong. This may or may not be relevant to your tyre which may take 100psi more than my mountain bike tyre.

Earlier in the thread, mention was made of taking your old tyre to a recycling centre. I'm yet to be convinced that they will do anything other than burn or bury it. I've searched online for bike tyre recycling technology in the UK, and this brings up specialist companies who charge you to drop your old tyres or Li-ion batteries off, but are suspiciously quiet about what they actually do with the things... I'm sure there are industrial processes which could strip the rubber from the casing in order to 'recycle' both however, as with much recycling technology, this is too expensive and time-consuming to cope with the vast amounts of waste we produce, so instead our 'recycling' is dealt with by sleight of hand, i.e. burned or being shipped off to poor countries who promise us they'll recycle it rather than dump it... As individuals, the best thing we can do therefore is to minimise the amount of stuff we buy and throw away.

[SpaceCaptainTheodore]

Thanks DevonDamo. I might experiment and pop it on a knackered old rim I have and leave it dangerously overpressured to see how it goes. (I'll do some calculations to see what might simulate a rider load). If nothing else, it'll generate a data point I can refer to next time I wind myself up.

Regarding the recycling/incineration thing, I used to be a waste management specialist (in a niche area). Sometimes combustion is genuinely the least worst option, and the technologies can be pretty clean.

Ironic, given the thread, but at an enterprise level tying yourself in knots to access a 'better' level in the waste hierarchy can create greater environmental detriments

[DevonDamo]

Regarding the recycling/incineration thing, I used to be a waste management specialist (in a niche area). Sometimes combustion is genuinely the least worst option, and the technologies can be pretty clean.

Although I'm completely unqualified in this, I've always thought the same - incineration seems to be the least-worse option when compared with landfill. It seems to be a choice between immediately belching a load of CO2 out of a chimney or leaving something nasty in the ground where, in the long term, it's going to give off CO2 as well as finding it's way into watercourses etc. I'm very pessimistic about the ability of humanity to organise itself effectively to prevent climate change, but we can at least minimise the amount of plastics etc. we're going to saturate the environment with for hundreds of years after the demise of our current industrialised civilisation.

Good luck with your experiment. The glue I used is this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195901755911 ... R9yZsuO0Yg Obviously, the larger the patch, the greater the glued contact area and the better the chance that it will withstand the pressure. A good starting point for patch material would be the casing from an old knackered tyre, although I got away with using a much more mundane and seemingly-weak fabric on my mountain bike tyre.

[SpaceCaptainTheodore]

Cheers!

Really appreciate your reply.

[Valbrona]

My Dad can't throw away a flat battery ... he got a drawer full of them.