Re: [CR]DT shifters too close to fork crown & wiping tires

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot)

From: <Stronglight49@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:43:10 EDT
Subject: Re: [CR]DT shifters too close to fork crown & wiping tires
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


Jan Heine wrote:

See this bike with both tire savers and fenders.

http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/images/rebour.jpg

Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly 140 Lakeside Ave #C Seattle WA 98122

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Yes, Exactly! I often mount tire savers along with mudguards on a rear wheel. Perhaps it is the additional difficulty (or annoyance) when I have to repair punctures to the rear tire, but this always seems to be the more vulnerable wheel - in my experience. Perhaps this is also because I can better avert a suddenly noticed threat to my front tire with a brisk evasive jog of the front wheel, while the rear would still follow the same general track.

In my area, where we are plagued with "Goatheads" which can easily pass through both the tire and a heavy nylon inner tire liner, I often sweep a front wheel clean of an immediately discovered thorn (with a glove) before repeated passes against the road drives it further through the tire and into the tube. If not caught right away, it is best to leave the soon broken bit of thorn in place where it will often remain as a "plug" until arriving home. Overzealous premature removal of the noisy bit on the tire will indeed leave a large un-mended puncture which will then instantly deflate the tire completely. So, clearing the tire always makes for a very quick and arbitrary decision.

As for the disappearance of Tire Savers...

I thought this was more a result of the changing trends in bicycles than improvements in tire technology. By the late 1980s, when MTBs were selling 8 to 1 over road bikes in the US. their knobby tires simply could not accept tire savers. This also created an entire industry for "Slime" and similar puncture repair fluids for inner tubes. Tire savers are actually best suited for the smoothest of road bike tire treads - such as our old sew-ups. As trends in road bike tires too began to sport irregular raised surface tabs or were cut with deep channels (which, unfortunately, are now more than ever in evidence on City and Touring tires from Michelin, Continental, et al) the practice of mounting tire savers became less logical for road bike tires too, and sales of tire savers vanished... making them now nearly extinct.

Kevlar?...

I thought Kevlar belting serves best as a sidewall protection or a mileage enhancement - much like conventional high thread counts on a tire. In fact, I seem to recall that the multiple thin fabric layers when used on bulletproof vests were less than adequate to defend against a sharp knife blade slash or an ice pick point, however they will prove to be entirely effective against the more flat or blunt nose of a bullet moving at thousands of times greater speed and overall force (... I may be mistaken here). Nevertheless, I have had plenty of Kevlar belted bike tires penetrated by small thin spikes of a goathead or a thin shard of broken glass. So, I question the claimed effectiveness of Kevlar as a truly valid puncture preventative.

BOB HANSON, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, USA

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