A year ago I bought a new Radial 360 for myself so my son could ride with me in the Tour de Cure on my old Coker.
From the first ride I could hear a slapping sound twice on each wheel revoloution, about 120deg apart. I have spent the last year trying to chase down this sound, changing the crank arms, pedals, wheel bearings, I even duct taped my shoe laces thinking they might be making the noies. Yesterday I took the tire off the rim to check the trueness of the rim and for loose spokes. It took only some minor adjustment to get it trued up. I decided to put the TA tire on my Coker rim and frame and sure enough, now the Coker is making the same sound, and with the old worn out Coker tire on the Radial 360 rim and frame it doesn’t.
Without sawing the tire casing apart my guess is that there is a void (air bubble) between the layers of the fabric belts inside the tire.
Has anyone else had a similar problem with the TA 36in tire?
I am assuming that this is an isolated problem and have ordered 2 more TA’s to replace the tire on both the Coker and the Radial 360.
Judging from the lack of responce I guess that a noisey 36" Tire TA is not a common occurance.
The big brown truck just brought me the two new TA’s and I have them installed on the 360 and the Coker. They both run silently. I guess I should have said something to UDC when the Radial 360 was new, but I thought the silp-slap noise was coming from the sprues that hadn’t worn off the tire yet.
I turned the old tire inside-out and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but there are two spots where even after 150 miles there is no tread wear (the die marks are still visible) but the rest of the tire is worn evenly.
If I were an engineer at a defense contract corporation with access to an X ray machine I could have a peek at what is inside the bias belt plys. I imagine that would cost a civilian hundreds of dolars to have done. Its only a $85 tire.
Mmmmm. The only noise that I get from my TA is a weird gurgling noise when riding in the wet! Other than that it’s pretty much silent - much quieter than my old Big Apple 29er. It cruises silently down the street, and then people suddenly notice me - the largest cycle wheel they’ve ever seen cranking along at high speed with a dude perched inexplicably on top.
I’ve got the TA tire that came on my Nimbus 36. It’s smooth and quiet. Since you’ve ordered new ones, why don’t you do some surgery on the old one. Cut a cross section right at the suspected spot and see if there is any delamination between layers. A utility knife oughta get you a nice, clean cut.
