My World. My Life.

Welcome to my newly-revamped blog.

Do click on the stars above to navigate.

Cheers, Gabby

Sunday, April 15, 2007

{*new tires or tyres*}

check out what happened today.

at ard 11 am i was prepared to replace the punctured tires on my 2 full-suspension mountain bikes. my dad surprised me once again, by his geniousity - he managed to remove the 2 tires. its not easy im telling you! with all the gear, chain and stand attached to the back tire, its anything but.

so anyways, i carried the 2 tires to the nearest bike shop which involved a short flight of steps, across a minor road, down a long flight of steps and around 100-200m walk. damn things got so heavy after a while -.- but but but -here comes the good part- the bike shop was closed!!! so i carried the tires back home while my family went for bfast/lunch.

meanwhile i spent the time researching on a change of tire type/width and decided on changing the original tires from a 2.1" width to small ones. less width, less rolling resistance, more speed i figured.

considering into account the severity of the puncture, my dad and i were pretty reluctant to take the bikes out to a bicycle shop at keat hong to get the tires replaced. but throwing all caution to the wind and armed with a hand-pump, we made our way to keat hong. what a mistake. less than 1 km into the journey, the back tire of my dad's bike gave and we couldnt salvage it. sooo we practically pushed the bikes the remainder of the 2.4 km..i did not want my dad to overexert himself, so he took and rode my bike for some distance.

so we finally made it to the bike shop. they offered, upfront, Kenda Klimaxlitetires, 345grams, 26X1.95" at 43 bucks apiece. we took the offer and all was well until we took to the pavement - there was still wax on the tires and it was extremely slippy. my dad slipped :( luckily he was going slowly and sustained superficial wounds to his knee and toe. but if i were him, i'd probably be brawling. my brave daddy!

so anyways we got back w/o any further incidents and i just found out from the reviews online, the tires are extremely thin and lack traction on wet/loose surfaces. so there you are, a flaw in my equation. less width, less roll resistance, more speed and LESS traction. really dangerous.. considering singapore's wet weather. scared as i am, im looking forward to the next trip out on the bikes. gotta be careful tho.

here are some pics. oh and did i mention i did all this at the expense of meeting up with flo and gang? they are having fun at her place now :(

fat 2.1" tires. whole lot of resistance when it comes to acceleration and top speed. ie everything haha. but its compensated by its brilliant grip.

Kenda Klimaxlite 345g! felt like ice-skating when cycling in wet weather.

claims to be 1.95" but its like 1.65" max, somewhat like a slick.

Gabby | 8:36 PM

Comments: Post a Comment