storage at high temperatures

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?
--
JT
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John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?
--

FWIW, I stored a few pairs of tan sidewall clinchers in a storage shed
for a couple years, where the temp went well over 90F at times. The tan
sidewalls turned a pale orangeish color and became very "dry". The
tread seemed fine. I had to dispose of one tire due to the sidewall
issue. Another pair of the same tires (same vintage, all bought at one
time on a closeout) stored in the garage are fine.

I won't do that again.

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Dear John,

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures.

Is this effect signifcant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored 50
years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?
--
JT
****************************
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John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Dear John,

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures.

Is this effect signifcant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored 50
years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?

Wrapping in plastic (to fend off ozone) would probably mitigate some of
the problems. If these are folding clinchers, you could wrap in plastic
and throw in a cheapo styrofoam cooler. That way, if the 90F temp
wasn't 24 hours a day, the tires would be protected from some of the
peak heat. I doubt 90F is so serious a problem anyway, but is it really
120F (like my attic seems)?

Mark J.

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Gee, I hope not. I've been keeping my bikes, including tires, in a
garage for years now. I'm afraid to put a thermometer in there to find
out how hot it gets, it'd probably overflow the 120 line; but I know
it's usually over 90 outside for 3-4 months every summer.

Pat

"John Forrest Tomlinson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?
--
JT
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Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

It depends on the type of rubber used in the tires.

90° F shouldn't be too bad, the rubber is heated to a much higher
temperature during the vulcanization process.

For example I have some old Wolber 700c x 28 Super Corse tires from the
mid 1970's that I still ride on occasion on my retro touring bike. They
have 3000 to 5000 miles on them. They've been stored in various garages
and basements over the years. Part of that time was in the South West so
they spent a lot of time over 90°F. The lack of humidity seemed to dry
out some rubber products.

The thick (by modern standards) gum rubber side walls are a little
cracked but the treads are still good. They had taken a set from sitting
in one position for so long that it took a week or so after I inflated
them to fully round out. I check them carefully every time before I ride
on them.

All of my old latex side wall sewups have dried out and are shot but I
have a number of Specialized tires from the mid 1980's to the early
1990's that are still good.

Something to watch for is dried out sidewalls on high pressure
clinchers. The fabric covering the beads can break down and be easily
damaged or come apart while installing or removing the tire.

Also, be careful not to store rubber products near any operational
electric motors. The motors produce a lot of ozone when they run and
this will cause most kinds of rubber to deteriorate.

I've used Armor All on bike tires in the past. It seems to have helped a
little.

Chas.

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Dear John,

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures.

Is this effect signifcant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored 50
years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?

Dear John,

Hard to say. The absolute temperature difference is less than 5%.

(Add 460 to convert Fahrenheit to Rankine, and you get 460+90 versus
460+65, or 550/525, which is 1.0476, a 4.76% increase.)

But complicated chemical reactions rarely proceed in a linear fashion.

Note that in a freezer at 32F, meat becomes hard, but can be thawed
and then changed at 212F into something dramatically different and
tasty, 672Rk versus 492Rk, or 1.365, a 36.5% difference. It's not that
meat cooks 36% faster at boiling than at freezing--it will never cook
at freezing.

Unfortunately, the only way to tell about your specific tires would be
to store one in a hotter place and another in a cooler place and see
what happens.

Subaru stored the spare tire in the engine bay in at least one model.
Fogel Labs inadvertently conducted a 10 year test, replacing the
unused limited-duty spare with a normal tire and cooking it slowly to
bring out the flavor.

When a tire was destroyed, the slow-cooked spare was mounted. It
failed within a week, tread coming off in great chunks.

An engine bay gets hotter than 90F when you stop with a hot engine,
but the car was mostly used on weekends, driving out a lonely highway
to a state park to walk dogs.

I can't think of anyone who'd prefer to store thin-tread bicycle tires
at 90F. They're small enough and expensive enough to deserve cooler
lodgings.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures.

Quoted message said:

Is this effect significant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored
50 years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?

It doesn't take 5 years for a tire to develop a hard, crack prone
surface from which cracks into the base rubber can develop (like
anodizing on aluminum) that are structural.

I keep my Campagnolo gum lever hoods and REMA patch box in the freezer
inside plastic bags for that reason.

Jobst Brandt

Quoted message said:

It doesn't take 5 years for a tire to develop a hard, crack prone
surface from which cracks into the base rubber can develop (like
anodizing on aluminum) that are structural.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying tires can
develop cracks in less than five years?

Which ones? It can't be generally, as I've got a Michelin tire I've
used a few times a year for 10 years. Stored in my apartment, so it
never gets very hot or cold. No problems.

--
JT
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* * Chas said:

It depends on the type of rubber used in the tires.

90° F shouldn't be too bad, the rubber is heated to a much higher
temperature during the vulcanization process.

For example I have some old Wolber 700c x 28 Super Corse tires from the
mid 1970's that I still ride on occasion on my retro touring bike. They
have 3000 to 5000 miles on them. They've been stored in various garages
and basements over the years. Part of that time was in the South West so
they spent a lot of time over 90°F. The lack of humidity seemed to dry
out some rubber products.

The thick (by modern standards) gum rubber side walls are a little
cracked but the treads are still good. They had taken a set from sitting
in one position for so long that it took a week or so after I inflated
them to fully round out. I check them carefully every time before I ride
on them.

All of my old latex side wall sewups have dried out and are shot but I
have a number of Specialized tires from the mid 1980's to the early
1990's that are still good.

Something to watch for is dried out sidewalls on high pressure
clinchers. The fabric covering the beads can break down and be easily
damaged or come apart while installing or removing the tire.

Also, be careful not to store rubber products near any operational
electric motors. The motors produce a lot of ozone when they run and
this will cause most kinds of rubber to deteriorate.

I've used Armor All on bike tires in the past. It seems to have helped a
little.

Thanks,
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

If I recall my reliability theory for semiconductors correctly, the
Arrhenius rule is that rates of reaction (typically? always?) double
for a 10 degree centigrade (18 degree Fahrenheit) rise in temperature.
Storage at 90 F has chemical processes happening between 2 and 4 times
faster than at 65 F. Now the real question is, how much needs to
happen before the integrity of the tire (one of these vague quality
terms) is compromised? I can't say. In general I'm in agreement with
Carl's P.O.V. that it is complicated. But I do think that storage at
cool temps is better than storage at high temps.

Ken

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:08:26 -0500, John Forrest Tomlinson
<[email hidden]> wrote:

>Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
>(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
>many months at a time?

Dear John,

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher
temperatures.

Is this effect signifcant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored
50
years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?

Dear John,

Hard to say. The absolute temperature difference is less than 5%.

(Add 460 to convert Fahrenheit to Rankine, and you get 460+90 versus
460+65, or 550/525, which is 1.0476, a 4.76% increase.)

But complicated chemical reactions rarely proceed in a linear
fashion.

Note that in a freezer at 32F, meat becomes hard, but can be thawed
and then changed at 212F into something dramatically different and
tasty, 672Rk versus 492Rk, or 1.365, a 36.5% difference. It's not
that
meat cooks 36% faster at boiling than at freezing--it will never
cook
at freezing.

Unfortunately, the only way to tell about your specific tires would
be
to store one in a hotter place and another in a cooler place and see
what happens.

Subaru stored the spare tire in the engine bay in at least one
model.
Fogel Labs inadvertently conducted a 10 year test, replacing the
unused limited-duty spare with a normal tire and cooking it slowly
to
bring out the flavor.

When a tire was destroyed, the slow-cooked spare was mounted. It
failed within a week, tread coming off in great chunks.

An engine bay gets hotter than 90F when you stop with a hot engine,
but the car was mostly used on weekends, driving out a lonely
highway
to a state park to walk dogs.

I can't think of anyone who'd prefer to store thin-tread bicycle
tires
at 90F. They're small enough and expensive enough to deserve cooler
lodgings.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

(Attribution lost)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
> (clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
> many months at a time?

I keep my Campagnolo gum lever hoods and REMA patch box in the freezer
inside plastic bags for that reason.

That's fine for small things, but for a tire? I'd worry about a tire
freezing or at least getting stiff, and then breaking when someone
(maybe me) was rooting around looking for that extra half gallon of
ice cream.

Pat

Email address works as is.

Patrick Lamb said:

On 03 Nov 2006 19:04:11 GMT, [email hidden] wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I keep my Campagnolo gum lever hoods and REMA patch box in the freezer
inside plastic bags for that reason.

That's fine for small things, but for a tire? I'd worry about a tire
freezing or at least getting stiff, and then breaking when someone
(maybe me) was rooting around looking for that extra half gallon of
ice cream.

I don't keep any tires in the freezer either, but not because of the
danger of them getting too cold. People ride bicycles and other
rubber-tired vehicles in temperatures well below that of a normal home
freezer. When I lived in Fargo, I routinely rode my bike to and from
school at -20F or even lower and never had any tire shatter upon
hitting a pothole.

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Well, the cooler the better I guess.

The real problem with rubber is UV and ozone. To protect from UV just
keep it in the dark. For ozone protection, avoid
places near ignitors or pilot lights, such as water heaters or furnaces.

Matt O.

In article
<[email hidden]>,
John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Is there any problem with long-term storage of bicycle tires
(clinchers, tubes and perhaps tubular) in a space that will be 90F
many months at a time?

Dear John,

Rubber deteriorates as a chemical process.

Most chemical processes proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures.

Is this effect signifcant for tires stored at 90F instead of, say,
65F? Is it something like a tire will change noticeably if stored 50
years at high temp, or in a few years, or what?

Reaction rate increases as the fourth power of absolute
temperature.

((90 + 459) / (65 + 459))^4 = 1.2

--
Michael Press