Why do bike tires go flat when not in use? (42 characters)

You haven’t ridden your bike in a long time. You have put it away in your garage for some reason. You were busy with something but now you have free time again. You have decided to open your garage and ride your bike once again. But what’s this? Your bike tires are flat. You didn’t ride your bike all this time. Your bike tires were fine the last time you left it here. How did your bike tires lose air?

What we have just described here is a common issue for any irregular rider. Many riders experience this and the internet is filled with this question “why do bike tires go flat when not in use?” Hopefully in this article we will give you an answer. We will also give you some tips to avoid this problem.

What is the reason behind bike tires going flat?

There are a number of reasons why bike tires go flat while unused. We will describe a number of reasons below. By the way, we are assuming your bike tires have no puncture or a leak.

Explanation 1

You need to think about it at the molecular level. Bike tires are filled with air. The inside of the tire is very porous.

The tire rubber looks solid from the outside, but on the molecular level it has little holes. A tubeless tire directly holds the air inside it using its rubber wall. When the air is filled in the rubber tire, the tire becomes inflated. The air inside it constantly keeps pushing the rubber walls.  Since the inside of the tire is porous, the air molecules slowly leak out of the tire. As a result, the tire loses air. The process is very slow. It takes weeks for the air to leak and make a visible change on the tire shape. 

When you leave it in the garage, you don’t know this process is taking place. That is why when you see your bike after a long time, you question yourself “where did air go?”

Explanation 2

When we use our bike, the bike tires heat up. This causes the air inside it to increase in volume. This could be the reason why bike tires stay inflated during a ride. The heat from the constant friction of the bike tire and the road causes the air molecules inside to stay in high volume.

Even when the tire is being inflated by the air pump, the tire stays inflated because of the heat. This heat is created by the air pump itself. When air is forcefully pushed inside the tire, the air molecules crushes into the rubber wall. This creates heat which keeps the air molecules in high volume.

When we are not using our bike this heat leaves the bike tires. As a result the drop in temperature reduces the volume of air inside the bike tire. This causes the bike tire to look flat. The air is still inside there but because the heat is absent, the bike tire appears deflated.

This also happens when you leave your bike in a cold place for a long time. This also happens during winter.

Explanation 3

If you are using a tube tire, it is possible that you will lose a fair amount of air. Tube tires lose air slowly over time. It takes weeks or even days for tube tires to lose air.

The simple solution to this is to just inflate it again.

What is the solution to these flat bike tires?

From the above explanations or hypothesis we might say, there is no fixed solution to this problem. It is really hard to avoid this completely. Almost every bike rider has this issue. The bright side of this is it’s not a big issue. It has a very simple solution. Just inflate it back. 

Keep a manual air pump in your garage. If you are a really smart person then you can buy a Kensun AC/DC Tire Inflator. This will save a lot of your time and you won’t have to worry about pumping it all the time. The automated tire inflator will make this problem non-existent.

Conclusion

When you are riding a bike you need to keep moving forward to keep the balance or you will fall. The same principle applies when it comes to bike tires. You need to keep using your bike in order to keep it inflated. If you don’t use it and put it in a cold place your bike tires will be flat again.

Funny thing is this same principle applies to our body as well. If we don’t keep our body in activity, we become frail and lose shape. So in order to keep everything in shape, we need to constantly use it and improve it.Hopefully now you understand why bike tires go flat when not in use. We hope our guide gave you some idea in avoiding it.