Flat rear, out of the blue???
 

Anyone else had this happen?

About 7 weeks ago, the wife and I found out we were expecting, then I had to go out of town for a week and a half on business.

In the last 5 weeks I've ridden my bike one time either because of weather or other issues where I needed my truck. That was about 4 weeks ago.

rear tire has been holding air just fine forever, and last week I looked at it and noticed a flat or very low rear. I aired it up and it leaked back down in about 3 days. Since then it is now leaking down in about 1 day.

I got it up on my stand today and carefully inspected the contact patch and couldn't find anything stuck in the tire, and soapy water didn't show me any bubbles.

then the neighbor turned his lawnmower off and I heard hissing:
There was air escaping from 7 different spots between the bead and the rim.

It's been 2 hours since I put air in it and I just checked - it's acually built up 2 PSI from sitting in the sun.

Is this a side-effect from not being ridden, or do I need to do something else?

The arrows point to where the air was leaking. Those aren't cracks in the rim, and the flaked paint isn't from a wreck or laydown - it's just flaking off. The wheel is true, just dirty.

I'm guessing it just broke the bead when it went flat from slow leak. Sometimes
getting it to re-seat is a pain.If it's holding now, monitor it, see if
it holds pressure for a few days.

That still leaves, why it was flat in the first place. Either, you've been a bad-boy
and haven't checked it in a while and was already low (more than the month, you
weren't riding), or you've got a bad valve possibly. When you were checking for leaks did you check the valve, itself? They do go bad.

Hope this thought helps, Ern

Um... Yeah.

Attachment 44992

Holds air fine until ridden. But at least it was sorta easy to find :p

@mad - yeah checked the stem- actually had stem replaced a few months ago when my front wheel's stem broke off in my hand.

It was holding air fine until it just was flat one day - after weeks of sitting in the garage. I'm pretty anal about checking my pressures before riding, and the rear had never lost more than ~2 lbs even when sitting for 2 weeks or so.

I have scrubbed the tire clean and still can't find anything in the trad, or any cuts that look like they go deep enough so be significant - like the cut in Kuro's tire inboard of the nail.

This tire has about 700 miles on it, so there better not be anything stuck in it - I have another identical tire in storage that picked up a nail at about 1400 miles. I'm about to become a big fan of the "plug it and ride it" side of the discussion.

Guess I'll take it next week and have a shop demount the tire and look for interior punctures, and see if it's just that the bead has started leaking.

Or throw some slime in it.

Sometimes when either airing up a tire or checking the tire pressure, the needle valve fails to seat itself back fully again. It's not common but I've seen it happen. An old mechanic friend used to always put a dab of spit on top of the needle valve opening before replacing the cap to check for leaks after airing up a tire to make sure it was fully seated. This might explain the mysterious air leak without a puncture.