Carlisle Tire Failure

It’s always a bit sad leaving a large venue where tremendous connections with friends have been made. Such is my feeling in leaving Alumapalooza this year. So many new and wonderful friends made with the bonus of reconnecting with lovely friends from last years rally. However, we’ve had such a full month of activity and I’m ready for some down time! Packing up, we managed to beat the throng of the parade folks and made our way to LaGrange Ohio, happy campers per se.

Thankfully we arrived safe and sound at our friends Lou and Larry’s house. Why might you ask? When we arrived, upon backing up the trailer into the driveway, Lou and slaDE discovered that all of our 6 trailer tires were at the point of complete failure! In fact, 2 had failed (we lost about 12 inches of belt in the front tire somewhere close to LaGrange and the rear tire had a bubbling big hole). We are incredibly fortunate to not have blown them on the way here. It’s actually quite amazing that we didn’t. Luckily, there was no damage apart from the tire loss itself. Someone was certainly looking down upon us today. That really would have sucked to have blown 1+ tires, especially if we were travelling at speed. Eeek!

With more research and the advice of our friends, we decided to switch to Radial tires shifting from our current failing Bias Ply (cross-ply) tires. Radials are safer in that they are steel belted rather than nylon based. Theoretically this in turn means that they will last longer and hold up better. Well, when you spend over $1000 in tires, I was kinda hoping that they’d last for the expected 3-5 year minimum life expectancy. Too much to ask??! What are your thoughts?

Another potluck this evening. Fabulous fun with food and yogaFLIGHT by the campfire.