Innocently tooling along

   I was rolling along on a rather busy corridor, doing my best to stay out of trouble between the 18' piles of snow we accumulate  on the side of the road.  The end of February does not leave much wiggle room for riding in traffic.  Oh no!  The gunshot sound of a tire blowing.  It was  a tire blowing out from within, not the pronounced fart of a tire pierced.  That was weird, I am riding Nokian W106 tires with enough tread to last another 8 winters.  I looked down and the beads were on the rim, but I scurried along for half a block on foot until I could find a clear parking lot to inspect it.  That was odd, nothing could be seen wrong, and a defective tube would have broken long before now, those tires had been mounted for two years.  Fortunately I was within a couple of blocks, so I just walked home.
   At first I could find nothing wrong with the tube or tire.  I ran a cotton ball through the inside and nothing stuck.   Then I saw something I had never seen.The rubber had worn completely off the wire bead for a 1 1/2 in span.

Then I found the hole in the tube, definitely a well defined blowout where the tube had found it's way through the rubber and wires and a little bubble burst.

  Fixing the tube was no problem.   I wondered if I should try to get the tire back to Nokian.   I had used it for 3 severe winters and I'm guessing the wear occurred because I had let it stay a bit under inflated.    Fixing this seemed like an interesting challenge so I gathered what I thought might help.

Duct tape and some silicone adhesive, in this case Shoe Goo.

I cut a piece of tape to stick to the inner side of a tire, like I was making a boot for a sidewall puncture, then slathered the bead wires over with a generous coating of silicone goop.

I sealed that in by folding over the duct tape. and  let it set up for about an hour.

I went ahead and mounted the tube and tire to let it cure overnight.

 In the morning, I trimmed off the excess tape and pumped it up to normal pressure.

Everything seems to be normal a day later.  I'll take it out for a few local miles tomorrow to give me confidence to use it.  There is no reason to think this repair won't hold up for a few seasons, but I will be checking and reinforcing the tape on a regular basis, at least each season of use.