an exploding flat

Went on an easy recovery ride tonight on the TT bike and within a mile of leaving my rear wheel starts to rub and then vibrate and then bounce and then POP! Fortunately I started to immediately slow down to a stop once I felt the rear wheel start to go. The tube exploded with such force that it popped a 4-6" portion of the tire right off of the rim. Yikes! It could have been worse. I was able to change the tube quickly until I realized that my spare tube's stem was too short for my deeper rimmed rear wheel. Fortunately again I was riding with 4 others and one other rider had a long stem tube. Phew! I did, however, have to ride the remaining 18 miles on a wheel inflated with CO2, which meant that it was gonna be soft by the end of the ride.

The rest of the ride was fine. I took it completely easy and felt as good as new by the end.