Re: [CR]Tire Alert

(Example: Racing)

From: "Russ Fitzgerald" <rfitzger@emeraldis.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: Re: [CR]Tire Alert
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 20:57:48 -0400


Dale writes,
>Hmmm. I would like to hear from any of you with personal experiences with
>Tire Alert.. I was just talking to a very good& long term customer yesterday
>about them.. He was dissatisfied with their base tape gluing job.. It was
>inadequate and caused him not to be able to use the tires for very long after
>receiving them back from TireAlert.. He wanted to send more tires but was
>waiting for them to answer his inquiry as to how they intended to address
>this problem.

Okay, Dale. I was going to be nice and assume it was only me, but since you asked ...

I sent them a pair of Continental Sprinters a little over a year ago. The tires returned lumpy, and with base tape that looked like glorified cheescloth. I figured, hey, they know what they're doing, right? Wrong.

They both failed pretty badly. The one that stands out is when I had a flat on the 4th of July. I started removing the tire - only to find the base tape was staying on the rim, while the glue holding the casing to the rim tape had NO adhesion - it was like chewing gum left in the sun, stringy but no strength. Scary, and I'm grateful I didn't roll that sucker off in a turn. The rim tape wouldn't come off correctly, either - it came off in little two or three inch strips (between spoke holes), so there I was sitting and sweating in the sun for a while removing all this flimsy, gooey junk from my rim.

I forget how the other one failed, but it was similar, if less spectacular. At any rate, I called them, and described what had happened, and got a general non-response. I do NOT recommend them.

Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
rfitzger@emeraldis.com
http://www.emeraldis.com/~rfitzger
http://www.lostweekend.homestead.com