CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
I've become a very close acquaintance of the fair folk in the last few weeks. This morning I thought I'd managed to thread through some glass about 10m from my house. I failed... Irritatingly this was my last functioning bike so I had to hoof it this morning.
Between the roofing nail going through the Gatorskin on the racer putting me back on the fixed with its wafer thin tyres, I'm starting to think they’ve got it in for me.
Having just spent the last few evenings assembling hub geared-and-braked bike for winter, I'm currently offering many prayers to Vulcan[ised], god of tyres and innertubes, to keep the faeries at bay.
Although it's not too much more complicated than a singlespeed / fixed change, there's just one extra cable to release (hub gear) and there's no quick release for the brake. The annoying bit seems to be that neither of these are suited to doing with your gloves on and also you need to set up both the gear and the brake when putting the wheel back on.
Time to try that pre-fitted spare tube thing that Bromptronists are supposed to do?
@wingpig thought about that, but then I thought it might be as easy locating puncture and fixing tube with temporary patch at the time, without removing the wheel.
Puncture due to hitting some concrete rather hard suring a CX race yesterday.
I then had to run the entire course in order to get to the pits where a puncture repair kit awaited. Luckily a buddy of mine gave me a go of his bike instead thus saving me any more delay! He had tubs on his rims and I must say they had cracking grip and were great fun to ride!
Front wheel puncture on Whitehouse Loan this morning, noticed about the Bike Coop and nearly came off bike as road that rutted. Had to use multi tool to remove large bit of glass from tyre (went straight through my Armadillos). Was pretty chilly changing inner tube at 8am.
Hi new to forum but been reading for a while, I punctured twice in a day. One going over the salt-grit near haymarket dept,on the cycle path- someone mentioned to me before that EDC put 20% of crushed glass in this mix. the shard was glass. the 2nd time was a new tube from Evans which ripped at the valve stem. So I do not know if the EDC do this but to be maybe aware.
@mercury... welcome aboard!
I must admit that my initial reaction to your post was "nahhh... nobody is that stupid!"
But, voila! It seems that councillors surprise us yet again! A quick google suggests that a number of councils do, in fact, put crushed glass in their grit.
I couldn't (in my 30 second search) find anything about Edinburgh specifically, but here's a couple of links to show that Edinburgh does not have a monopoly on short-sighted thinking;
York
London
Cycling back from the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome to Queen St station on Saturday night after the Revolution Series cycling, heard familiar hiss from rear tyre about half way along London Road. Accompanying daughter suggested cycling on and fixing the tyre on the train, as we didn't want to miss last train home. Did so, very carefully, but walked the last stretch up Queen St.
Checked the tyre yesterday (Continental GP 4000) and found neat cut about where the tube had a similar neat cut. Didn't notice if there had been any gritting on the road :-(
I cycled over a lot of glass on my way home on Grassmarket last week. Could hear the glass popping. No idea how I avoid getting a flat, no glass in my tires either. Puncture fairies aren't all bad maybe.
I've just taken the Marathon Plus tyres off my daily commuter bike for the winter and replaced them with Marathon Winters. This is the first time the Marathon Pluses have been off since I put them on in April, which means no punctures at all in 1,575.4* miles (mainly on the towpath).
(*this precision comes from recording my gear on Strava, rather than me doing lots of adding up).
@Greenroofer, excuse my ignorance - I'm new to cycle commuting - but I have been considering putting Marathon Plus tyres on my mountain bike due to recent punctures. My commuting route takes me over 'puncture-perfect' ground, with thorns, sharp stones, glass, etc. I've already had three punctures and I've only been doing this for three weeks!
I'm assuming that the "Marathon Winters" you mention are for better grip in winter conditions (snow/frost) and I'm now wondering if I should consider the 'winter' tyres. Do the Marathon Winters also have a high resistance to punctures? Most of my route is off-road, with only short sections on roads, so, assuming most of your cycling is on roads or good paths, should I stick with the Marathon Plus, or would the Marathon Winters still be more beneficial to me over the winter months?
I have one marathon winter tyre, it has two rows of spikes. I flip it on to the front wheel if icy. You can get them with four rows. They work well on ice. Greenroofer uses canal towpath, it is not gritted like the NEPN or Innocent. they are not as puncture resistant I think as Marathon Plus but do seem to be as puncture resistant as standard Schwalbe Marathons.
There is at least one thread somewhere on here devoted to spikey tyres. A relatively recent craze around these parts. I asked What did we used to do before we succumbed to the craze? answer - fell off. They don't do much for heavy falls of snow but probably help on compacted snow?
Hmm, the spikey tyre. I don't usually cite the dutch, but for the sake of creating some debate...
A little bit like when the 'h.....t' debate kicks off and everyone says, "well they don't wear helmets in the Netherlands, you must therefore be silly if you think there is any need to wear a helmet", open you tube, do a search for 'cycling in snow in Amsterdam' or something, try spot the spikey tyres, you won't see any, therefor I conclude by the reasons of, well the Dutch don't use them and they know best when it comes to everything to do with cycling, then they must be a waste of money or something.
There also appears to be no conclusive evidence that winter cyclist injuries have dropped since the introduction of them. </silly arguments>
Incidentally, I don't use them, but for none of the reasons stated above. ;)
I only went for one on the front and only two rows of spikes for similar reasons. I would say my most spectacular tumble came when I tried to emulate what a guy in front of me did in ice on a bend near murrayfield stadium, turned out he was spiked up whereas I was only marathon plus. If you stick to main roads that are gritted then ice isn't to big a deal. Coming over the top of the pentlands in winter, not sure what would help?
I performed some experiments on Arthur's Seat in the snow last winter on both bikes to compare 23mm and 35mm tyres at a few different pressures, though not controlling for the differing weight distributions across each set of wheels or the difference in available gearings. Whilst the 23mm were far better for climbing without loss of traction (and resultant wheelspinning and fishtailing) the fatter ones were better at ruts and lumpy icy bits, so it's only a small leap to presume that fat plus spikes should equal more grip on upslopes with the continued benefit of rut-handling. A few years ago it took me about half an hour to get from Duddingston Road West to Bingham along the ungritted and hard-packed icy Innocent on 23/25mm as I couldn't do much more than just let the front wheel go where it wanted and correct it when it settled in a small depression in the tractionless ice.
Although it seems counter-intuitive that a skinny tyre should work better than a fat tyre in the snow, I suppose it is because of the higher ground pressure and narrower surface area that it is sinking through the snow and hitting either tarmac or even just the compressed snow provides greater traction. In thicker snow it might be better just to float across the top on a balloon tyre.
@slug, here's my view, for what it's worth.
Marathon Pluses seem to be like Marmite, and you either love them or hate them. I'm in the former category. I like to know that I won't get punctures, and that if I come across another broken bottle on the towpath, it's not the end of world if I have to ride over it. I go over the tyres every couple of weeks and lever out the bits of glass and thorns. I've deliberately not tried anything else in case it turns out they are really as heavy and slow as people say...
Through winter and early spring I put spiked tyres on. I've not had a puncture yet in three winters with them (doing about 500 miles each winter), but I understand that as they wear you can get problems with the studs pushing through into the inner tube and guess this might start soon. These are a bit less Marmitey apart from people trying to stir up controversy, most users seem to like them.
I ride the towpath, which, as gembo says, isn't gritted. Some bits can be icy, and it's pitch dark, so I like the reassurance that so long as I'm not stupid about my speed I can just keep going. Marathon Winters are for ice, not snow. They have more tread than a Marathon Plus, but won't really help when the snow lies round about, deep and crisp and even. However, once the king's been out delivering his stuff, and his page has trodden in the footsteps too and it's all turned to bumpy ice and CEC's not gritted it yet, then your Marathon Winters will get you home.
Oh yes, and here's the link to previous discussions:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=9073
Thanks for that Greenroofer, and also gembo/baldcyclist/wingpig/kaputnik. Much food for thought, (and a lot of reading to do on my part) but I suppose choice of tyres in adverse conditions is largely where experience comes in.
As for Marmite, I think it's... okay!
First puncture of the year on Leamington Walk. Triangular piece of glass 10mm straight through the Marathon! Delayed by 35 mins getting to work...
Thanks a bunch, Hogmanay party people!
First puncture this morning on the NEPN, for ages!! Partly my fault as I was head down spining along not looking at what was on the path ahead. Large peice of glass presumably as there was a loud cracking of braking glass. I continued on bouncing the wheels, thinking I'd gotten away from it. But as I approached Ferry road on Golden Acre path, the inevitable softer tyre and then eventually flat as I reached Tesco.
Also leanred that in my tidy up of my pannier I'd taken out tubes and not put them back in. Fixed the puncture in the comfort of my office though, makes a change from the usual road side job in the rain with drivers scoffing at you.
I learned a new lesson today.
On the NEPN around 8:05am, roughly at Ainslie Park Leisure Centre, I spotted a lady walking with her bike, so stopped to ask if she was ok. She had a flat. Her bike looked like some kind of hybrid, but her wheels looked around the same size as my road wheels so I offered to stick in one of my tubes to get her on her way.
I did this, and after pumping up the tube with the C02 canister, the tyre didn't look properly inflated, and after 5 seconds, the tube inside exploded. Odd, I thought. So I took it out, checked there was nothing sharp inside the tyre, and tried again with my other spare tube.
This time, I had to use my pump, and while trying to pump it up, realised the same thing was happening, so stopped, let the air out again and then realised my fail - the tyre was much wider / deeper, so although the circumference of the wheel was the same as my tyre, the tube needed to be much bigger, and thus my tube had exploded because it had attempted to fill a space much bigger than what it was designed for. Oops. Lesson learned.
I then did what I should have done in the first place, which was to find the hole in her tube and stick a patch on it to get her back home. Job done.
Two other people stopped to ask if assistance was needed, so if any of those people are on here, thanks for the offer.
Bravo!!
Doh. Roofing nail took out one of my gatorskins on an early ride with them when the universe decides its time for your puncture it finds a way!
The rear Schwalbe Marathon Racer on my new bike has a puncture from the drive home in the hire car, in folded state (bike not tyre). Compared to the rigidity of the Marathon plus tyres on 'er indoors' bike, these appear wafer thin! I think I'll get another set of Schwalbe M+ for it while I commute and practice learning how to ride the thing.
Anyone got a tip off on cheap suppliers for 2 inch wide Schwalbe M+ 26" tyres?
Cheers, Dave C
Try Spa Cycles?
http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s206p2884
not quite the same, admittedly
Panaracer Tour Plus appears to be slightly Cheaper replica of Schwalbe Marathon Plus. Much chat on thie interweb about their merits/demerits. Made by Pamasonic, sometimes in Japan, sometimes in china. I bet Schwalbe only ever made in Germany (east maybe).
Apparently Schwalbe tyres have been made in Korea since 1973 and for 2 years less than Panaracer.
I've never had Panaracer down as being a "cheap copy" type company though, even if the Tour Plus is cheaper than a M+, it's been around a while.
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