I dropped my son home, to
discover his favourite toy-a talking Donkey (from the Shrek franchise) who he
was inseparable for many years. Clearly still revered and sitting pride of
place, in a swivel chair. For several years, I searched high and low for a
replacement donkey, just in case…The worst happened…
As you can probably tell, he
wasn’t the only one smitten with the 14inch cuddly character. At the time of
purchase (back in 2004) several colleagues and I wanted one, for ourselves!
A quick browse of ebay…Next
thing I knew, I’d indulged. We’ll blame it on sentiment and the relief that,
following an X ray, my dental abscess required no further and moreover, painful
treatment.
Back in the saddle…
Thanks to sunny skies, the
Holdsworth has been seeing a good couple of hundred miles over the past week,
or so. I was surprised to discover its rear Vee Tire Co rain runner, had
succumbed to a hedge clipping. The sort that burrows into the aramid casing,
just deep enough to graze the tube, resulting in slow but steady, loss of
pressure.
Nothing a patch couldn’t cure.
Though the rain runner (now known as Rolldiac) are a lightweight, grippy and
generally dependable tyre, I’ve plucked this 25mm Freedom thick slick from my
tyre rack.
These are made by WTB and
according to their blurb “Designed to withstand the harshest urban elements”.
Urban labels aside, they’ve
been perfect for winter training and in a bigger section, they’d also handle
some lightweight/weekend touring (I’d used these 25mm on the “Teenage dream”
and ‘cross biased fixed, for a good few months, with excellent results).
True, the casings feel
relatively harsh, compared with the Rolldiac/Rainrunner, or indeed the
Panaracer Pasela. Wire beads will turn a few people off Nonetheless, these are
tempered by leach-like cornering prowess (wet, or dry) and outright
reliability.
Even after a few years, dry
storage, there’s no hint of deterioration, especially around the sidewalls. A
crushed Kevlar belt and dura layer armoured sidewalls also appear to deliver,
long term in the real world.
Even my malevolent farm cat
hasn’t taken exception to, or at least been able to gnaw through them.
Observation (and a large number of tube casualties) leads me to conclude he
genuinely likes Schwalbe and Continental, yet has visceral contempt for pretty
much every other brand!
Luckily, I’d just taken
delivery of a new batch of spare tubes. Much studier than the usual bundles,
they were on sale and for very similar money. I’ve swapped my ‘cross inspired
fixed’s Vittoria voyager hyper fort the Schwalbe Marathon GT https://www.sevendaycyclist.com/schwalbe-marathon-gt-tyres
Black walls, either plain, or with
retro-reflective piping has largely reigned supreme but recently, tan sidewalls
are creeping back into vogue. Perhaps, this is partly influenced by the
popularity of retro. Whether this is an influence of the retro-revivalist
trend. Or just another example of things being cyclical remains to be seen.
The Vel SE cage arrived on
Monday, so the Holdsworth was an obvious host. I seized the opportunity and
swapped the Elite for the Enigma, thus ending contact and knuckle grazing
issues with bigger (read standard 750ml) trade bottles.
I’ve had to nip the Topeak
adaptor mount a few turns, to counter the seemingly greater lateral forces
generated with a side entry design and 800ml Zefal bottle. Not a big deal but
one of those things, I hadn’t anticipated and might not have occurred, if
you’re coming from braze-on bosses.
Compared with the bright green
SL sibling, the SE’s plain black looks a touch ordinary, dare I say,
less refined, or shapely than the Lezyne flow. That said; thus far, the design
offers decent tenure and is easily reversed to suit dominant hands. Much to my surprise, the SE is in fact, alloy bodied, with composite ends. However, this explains why it copes so well, with heavier loads, such as tool bottles and old school bottle batteries.
