New tubes or "make do and mend"?

[Holdsworth]

I have finally got some new tubes from the LBS and the tyre is now holding air. I have checked round the tyre for any more foreign bodies that might p'ture the tube again but I couldn't find anything obvious by looking and running my hand over the inner and outer surfaces.

Whilst I was at the LBS I had a browse of their tyre section and had a chat with the owner. He recommended me the "Continental Gatorskin Hardshells" as a decent set of p'ture-proof tyres. How do these compare with other makes of tyres and are they good value for money at £28 each?

 

[Holdsworth]

So does anyone recommend the Gatorskin Harshells over other brands of tyre?

 

[Arch]

Re-use is always more beneficial than recycling, and I'm quite content to use the old tubes for a number of jobs, most of which would otherwise be done with newly bought materials.

My biggest problem is that written off tubes are even rarer than punctures so I never have enough of them for the other jobs. (I'm waiting for a puncture, or a donated tube would do, at present so I can replace part of the soft edging on my workbench - a case where old tubes are the best, no substitute accepted!)

I'll try to remember to have a look at work - we get bikes dumped on the reserve that often have one pringled wheel - I could whip a tube out for you.

Or if I get time to replace the tube in the trailer that has 13 patches in it, you could have that.

As for patches being expensive, I'm lucky enough to be a the York rally every year, and there's always some stall selling a bag of 100 patches for a couple of quid, so I stock up, and distribute several extras into each repair kit I have (one in each pannier or rack pack I own, generally.) Might be worth folk looking out for a Cycle Promotions sale locally, as I think they have bags of patches.

 

[John the Monkey]

So does anyone recommend the Gatorskin Harshells over other brands of tyre?

I've ridden Gatorskins (25c Wire on).

I found them excellent in the dry, and they roll really nicely at the recommended 95psi. The downside for the set I had was their slippiness in the wet - to this day, they're the only tyre I've managed to wheelspin (trying to sprint away from a set of lights). In the end, I lost confidence in them. Bear in mind that not everyone has that experience with them, and this is prior to the re-branding of them as "Hardshell" (the rubber compound could have changed, &c)

Wire on Schwalbe Stelvio (if they're still available) might be a good budget choice - I really liked mine. I did a quick round up of the tyres I've tried so far on my blog here.

 

[goo_mason]

I've been running a set of 23c Ultra Gatorskins since last April, and find them really good. They're only skittish in the wet if I hit the usual metal draincover / road studs / paint markings. I've had one flat in that time, and it was a slow one that went down over weeks when I was on holiday over Christmas.

Prior to that I had two sets of 25c Schwalbe Stelvios, which were great tyres although they did get cut-up pretty quickly on the roads in Edinburgh and those big gashes would ultimately pick up & trap sharp bits of glass / flint etc which lead to frequent unexpected deflations.

 

[Holdsworth]

Hmmmm tough choice.....

I will spend a few days to thoroughly think over which tyre to get and I would appreciate any more feedback on any decent p'ture resistant tyre.

Also my TT02 p'ture repair kit arrived today from Wiggle so I will spend tonight patching up one of the tubes from the other day to use as a spare.

 

[Dan B]

The downside for the set I had was their slippiness in the wet - to this day, they're the only tyre I've managed to wheelspin (trying to sprint away from a set of lights).

I've done that too. In retrospect it was entertaining.

 

[J4CKO]

I generally carry new spares for an easy roadside switch, I also have a box into which punctured tubes go and then when I have say five I have a
puncture fixing session and sometimes swap the fixed ones onto the bike and keep the intact ones as spares, generally coincides with a proper service of the bike.

I dont throw them away unless unrepairable, no point in having an arbitrary number of punctures as the threshold, I kind of reckon that the more patches they get they actually get more puncture resistant and also I feel like they have served me well, kind of like playing Conkers adding one for each win, my best being a 5'er !

I keep one in my rucksack and one in the seat bag, I used the rucksack when I travel with work, was ont he way to Boston and caused a minor security alert in security at Manchester as they spotted this strange object, they all had a good laugh when I was asked to take it out and unravelled
a 700c tube, probably though it was some exotic pet or sex toy which I would never put in my rucksack, thats what my suitcase is for....