This morning I serviced my old Lynskey, in preparation for Steve's ride tomorrow. I haven't ridden this bike for a while, and, taking a good look at it, decided it was time for a new tyre. The rear tyre was pretty well worn along the centre, at about three thousand miles.
The tyre is a Schwalbe S-One, a tyre that I bought when I was building up a Mason for the Tour of Flanders. It's a tyre that is specified for cobble racing, and I got mine from Germany. It's no longer available, but to my critical eye it looks exactly the same as the current very popular G-One Speed. Anyway, I had a spare, so I set about fitting it.
My first observation was that this tyre had been on the wheel since July 2015. It has done the Tour of Flanders, the Dragon Tour, the Dartmoor Devil (twice) and various runs along the South Downs and the Pilgrims way. It has not led an easy life, but it has never had a puncture of which I am aware.
Secondly, the tyre was well up to pressure, although the bike has not been used for a while. When I began to deflate it to take the tyre off I found that the valve core was completely sealed, so I removed the core and poked the latex with an allen key. It deflated easily enough, and I was able to remove the tyre by hand.
As the picture shows, there was plenty of latex in the tyre, so the evaporation that occurs with a new set-up obviously stabilises over time. This tyre has not been topped up for about a year. Examining it, there were a couple of marks inside that might have been punctures, or might not. No matter, really, the system had certainly worked to my satisfaction.
I cleaned up the wheel, popped a new tyre on (with a compressor - so much easier), and I'm ready for another few years.
Good kit.
Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment