I recently replaced my front tire with a Pirelli M43 trials tire, but unfortunately did not replace the Tubliss bladder after 12 months, 1700 miles and 184 hours.

RTFM: "Replace the inner bladder every 100 hours or 12 months"

You know where this is going. So after just 20 miles on the new tire the bladder developed a leak in the rim lock area.

With night coming on fast I decided to ride flat for about an hour and 9 miles to get back to my vehicle. The Tubliss supported this recovery mode just fine. Luckily I was out of the rocks and it was a pretty mild ride mostly on sand. Top speed was about 20 mph.

However, the Tubliss rim lock stem did move around and enlarge the rim hole quite a bit so I know there were some serious forces involved.

Now here is the problem. After mounting up a completely new Tubliss liner and bladder the tire is bent. Yes, the tire. It is warped and wobbles, like belts broke inside it or something. It is ridable but with a huge shimmy.

The rim is straight. Well, it's no more bent than it used to be. The problem is the tire.

Has anybody seen a tire get damaged like this before? I made the decision to sacrifice it if necessary and I guess I did. Somehow I thought there would be smoke and flames.

 

I ran a trakmaster II rear tire completely flat for at least, if not more, 5 miles and it looked new afterwards. I mean so flat the tube came out and ripped on the chain.

That was in June. I put a new tube in and it's still running strong

 

If the tire is seated fully on the beads and you have alot of runout, I would suspect that it has damaged the cord structure. I would replace the tire.

 

Ran about 10 miles, combination of asphalt and FS, with the beads broken on the front OEM tire. Visually the bead area looked ok, so I put in a new tube and everything seems to be ok. My max speed was close to 10 mph.

https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...5-years-43546/

 

> Visually the bead area looked ok, so I put in a new tube and everything seems to be ok. My max speed was close to 10 mph

> I would suspect that it has damaged the cord structure

My beads look good too, but I agree the cord structure must have been damaged.

For a trials tire the M43 has tough (tubeless) sidewalls but that was a lot of hurt on them: 140 lbs plus rider weight at 10 vs. 20 mph could make all the difference between damage and not. Have ordered a new tire.

Update 12/4/15: No wobble with new tire.

Lessons learned:

- Replace the Tubliss bladder at every tire change OR start thinking about replacing it at 100 hours even without tire change. Bladder blowout can have very expensive effects, including ruining a tire.

- If in a Tubliss recovery situation, take a few minutes to tighten the rim lock so it does not chew up the rim hole

- If running flat keep speed low, 10 mph or less

- Cords can break in a tire run flat