give a hoot
Oh boy, I haven’t gotten to talk about flat tires in forever.
Gwinnett is filthy. I don’t know why. I’ve seen some prison cleanup crews here and there, but maybe they only deal with cigarette butts and trucker bombs. One of the nice things about this area of Gwinnett is that it’s possible to cycle down busy roads out of the way of traffic, and one of the horrible things about this area of Gwinnett is that the sides of the roads are especially awful. Sides of roads are pretty universally bad, since they lack the car traffic that keeps the road itself clear of debris, but there’s something extra-special going on in Suwanee. This place is full of drunks.
Someone with more spare money than me should start some kind of a public service campaign: when you drink and drive, drink from a can. One of the side-effects of open container legislation—or possibly of being a minor—is that if you’re enjoying a beer in a car, while driving it or not, that open bottle is bad news to you and everyone around you, so the best thing to do is drink it down and chuck it out a window where I can run over it later. It took me a couple of weeks of running over these bottles, but I got a flat. This is the first time I’ve been able to puncture the horrifically named Maxxis Detonator after a couple of years of rolling them through all kinds of junk. It’s probably about time I got some new tires anyhow.
I decided to ask the internets about a good commuter tire. One of the weird things about reading articles about tires is that it’s pretty easy to tell when the writer has no idea what they’re talking about. For example, take this article from the New York Times. After the obnoxious hipster photo at the top and a couple of paragraphs of fluff, there seems to be some short, more-or-less to-the-point reviews of a handful of tougher road tires, some of which are available in the 27″ size mentioned at the top. But then there are statements such as, “The tiniest amount of tread [ensures] that if you are running over a piece of wet ground, you don’t have to worry about slipping.” I don’t know if this is some great secret of cycling or a case of collective denial or what. For narrow bicycle tires on hard, relatively smooth surfaces, like asphalt and concrete, treads are there for two reasons: they sometimes make the tire look prettier, and they make the tires easier to sell to people that are nervous about slick tires. And if the tread pattern is deep enough they also pick up various sharp bits of road junk, increase rolling resistance and reduce grip. It’s a shame that the representatives of a probably pretty alright bike nonprofit haven’t given very much thought to what keeps their bikes on the road. Anyhow, in general, the narrow profile of a bicycle tire makes it desirable to have as much rubber on the ground as possible in all conditions; in practice, the little treads they put on road tires are so shallow and so far down on the sides that they don’t have any effect one way or the other, and though the entire thing ended up being sort-of annoying, the New York Times article did give me a couple of leads.
I had some spare tires to replace the gashed-up, worn-out Maxxis, but I’m a little leery about them for a couple of reasons. For one, I’ve had some bad luck with the same type in the past, and for two, they’re a real pain in the thumbs to get on the rim. My kevlar-beaded fling has spoiled me. They were so light and zippy and comparatively easy to install. So it doesn’t make any sense at all that I spent this month’s fun times budget on a pair of Continentals. Continental has a reputation for making tires just a hair too small around, but these are also covered in kevlar, so hopefully I won’t need to mess with them too often. Wish me luck.