This goes back a few days on the list--the joys of crashed computers. But I recall my first long tour, up through the Adirondacks into Quebec for a week of fishing and beer drinking in a decrepit rented trailer buried deep in the woods at the end of many miles of gravel road. Then across Quebec and down through the Green Mountains of Vermont. It was August 1974 and I was riding a beautiful red Cinelli Mod. B that I had purchased second hand. I put fenders on it and a Pletscher rack to hold the camping gear.
The Cinelli was fitted with sewups, and in the ignorance of youth, I thought they should work just fine. My buddy squeezed 27" clinchers onto his Mk III Pro, but I thought he was a wuss. To be safe, I glued on a brand new pair of Imperferable Setas and brought all six of my patched and worn spares and a patch kit for good measure. I didn't get a single flat the entire trip! The day after I returned, I was riding out the driveway of the Schwinn shop where I worked and went through a deep puddle of water at the curb. BLAM-BLAM went both silks as I bounced over a broken coke bottle hidden in the puddle. Weep-weep went my eyes.
Steve Barner, still riding bologna skins in Bolton, Vermont
>
>Ah Daniel, your question takes me back in time. When I was an impoverished
>teen age bike racer, I survived on discarded tubulars from older riders. By
>necessity I learned how to repair those discards. Just one sacrificed 220
gm
>silk would provide me with lots of material for "boots" that could be glued
>with latex to the inside of a tubular casing to cover and repair casing
>cuts. Cuts in the tread strip could usually be repaired with crazy glue
>and/or plastic rubber.
>
>I would repair almost any tubular but soon learned to always carry at least
>two spares on rides, since the service life of repaired tires was not
nearly
>as long as for new ones.
>
>Hugh Enox
>La Honda