Tire puncture that repaired itself

[New-Tiger]

Something very odd happened to me this weekend on a trip to Margate.

Having pulled up in Whitstable to sample their famous oysters, a man approached me and said "oi! You've got a nail sticking out of your back tire"

Sure enough a 3 inch nail was protruding. It looked like it had gone in about an inch then twistd 90' and the rest of the nail was flat against my tire.

I pulled out the nail and tested for air leakage. Sure enough, the water(spit) i placed over the now tiny hole bubbled really slowly.

I rode the rest of the way to Margate and when i parked up i tested the hole again.....

VOILA!! No more air leaking???!!   I rode all the way back to London the next day and the tire pressure seemed to remain stable. What happened?

My thoughts are that the air escaping i first witnessed was caused by the nail pushing air into the tire, but not all the way to cause a puncture. Or that their is still a puncture, just extreeemely slow. I will check with a tire pressure guage once i have purchased one. Any ideas?????

[barjan]

What year is your bike? If you have spoked rims your inner tube was never punctured. If you have the newer rims, the puncture was'nt deep enough. OR you've put some puncture repair gue in your tires.



Removing nails mostly results in ppppssssssss and a lot of swearing is my experience.  

[djr]

Probably just never punctured the inner tube and the tiny bit air you saw was residual between tube and tyre.



Given that there is very little keeping you on the road I would tend to get the tyre checked by a tyre dealer just in case it has damaged the carcase inside. You do not want a blow out when you are in a hurry :shock:

[New-Tiger]

Sorry, forgot to say. 05 Tiger, so tubeless....



No glue-stuff has been added into tire.

[djr]

even more reason to get it checked then