I've just bee on a Bike tour of Northen Ierland and to see the NW200 again. I took the wife with top box and large panniers fully loaded, Before I went I orderd a set of Pirelli Angel GT's and fitted and balenced tham my self. I got the pair off Ebay for £20 les than what seemed to be the going rate for a pair of GT's. When I fitted the rear I struggled to get it on the rim and had to take several atemps at popping it on the bead, during fitting I even bent on of my Good quality tyre levers, I had to fight it all the way, so much so I was stiff as a board the next day. Now I've fitted around 13 + tyres to my bike's over the years, so it's not like I'm a novice. A on point I mesured the bead to check it was the size it said it was. Any how, tonight when I got home from our tour I washed my bike before putting it away and noticed this as I was spraying the rear wheel with ph nutral bike wash. I'm not sure if I've damaged it putting it on or if it was a faulty tyre after all? there is a small chip in my rim where the leaver has pushed through the rim protector when I was fitting it but I cant see a tyre leaver damaging the inner wall no mater how hard I try. Do you think I should get in touch with the seller? or even Pirelli and ask? I bought them about 7 weeks ago and fitted them about 4 weeks ago. It was a bit of a shock to be honest I've been litraly fully loaded and racing other bikes back from Scotland with thet bleb in my tyre wall.
Many years ago I worked for Michelin, and though no expert I know how a radial tyre is constructed. That damage looks like a failure of the bead wire to me. If so it may well have been done whilst fitting, but the cause would be a manufacturing fault of some kind. It needs to be removed by someone designated by Pirelli so they can be sure no more damage is done at that time and inspected by one of their technicians.
I'd ask them to have it tested to try and establish the reason why. But if it comes back as poor fitting technique then I wouldn't argue. Unless of course your a fully trained fitter with all the correct equipment to do so.
I'm just going to order a new one, I'm sure it was probably something I did, like I said it was fecking tight to get on in the end I had to put 90 psi in it to seat the bead, lol I layed it under a load of rubber oil spill matts just incase it blew. I'm sure it was under size and a reject.
E Bay tyre seller or just a private bloke who "may"have got hold of a pair that had been binned by a proper seller as defect ?
