Hiss...

Yesterday morning. A quick look at the outside thermometer: 33 degrees F. "That's close to 0 degrees C", I thought. Pretty warm for a winter bike ride to work. All excited, I pulled out my Schwinn from its parking place, loaded all my usual junk into panniers and took off down the hill towards Summer St.

Suddenly, after riding only a few hundred meters (yards, whatever), I heard a loud "hiss". First, I thought that something was rubbing against the wheel but when I stopped, it became clear that my rear tire was loosing air very quickly. Oops, time to walk the bike back home. But before I walked back, I decided to investigate what really happened. The damage looked weird - like the tire ruptured and bulged, but at the same time I didn't see any foreign object in it.

A closer look revealed that there was some of the tire ply visible in the hole. It looked like a serious damage. But once I pulled the tire off the wheel, I saw this:

It looks like a manufacturing defect to me and a tire such as this one should never be put on a bike. Not nice, Kenda and Schwinn!

Unfortunately, that meant I had to drive to work since I didn't have time to work on the bike in the morning. Too bad. I guess this means I need... another commuter bike as a backup!