Today on my new Madone, I discovered how useless the supplied tyres are, Bontrager race lite" but buying the bike had left me too skint to replace them when I bought it.
Whilst going up a damp 16% gradient, I found that I had no grip and my back wheel kept spinning, almost bringing me too a stop. The only way up was on the granny gear, just crawling, any attempt to stand or put pressure on led to my wheel spinning.
On the way down, I held back with the brakes to stop the bike running away, but just when I was almost at the bottom my back wheel went as I was almost into a right hand bend, letting go of my brakes made me speed up but once again both wheels went without applying the brakes and with a lot of gravel in my line the only thing I could do was straighten up, plowed up the grass embankment, brakes were then totally ineffective on the grass as I headed for a big bush. I just managed to turn but I was still speeding up with it being still downhill.
Then there in front of me was a big mound of hawthorn about 4' high the farmer had chopped down and no way could I avoid that, so with visions of my new Madone getting wrecked I rode straight into it, but somehow I pushed my way through to the other side and it slowed me down enough to be able to stop.
Incredibly the only evidence of the incident was a little sprig of hawthorn on the back of my frame and a big jump in my heart rate from my Garmin download. And I never even got a puncture apart from in my legs and under my armpit.
Whilst going up a damp 16% gradient, I found that I had no grip and my back wheel kept spinning, almost bringing me too a stop. The only way up was on the granny gear, just crawling, any attempt to stand or put pressure on led to my wheel spinning.
On the way down, I held back with the brakes to stop the bike running away, but just when I was almost at the bottom my back wheel went as I was almost into a right hand bend, letting go of my brakes made me speed up but once again both wheels went without applying the brakes and with a lot of gravel in my line the only thing I could do was straighten up, plowed up the grass embankment, brakes were then totally ineffective on the grass as I headed for a big bush. I just managed to turn but I was still speeding up with it being still downhill.
Then there in front of me was a big mound of hawthorn about 4' high the farmer had chopped down and no way could I avoid that, so with visions of my new Madone getting wrecked I rode straight into it, but somehow I pushed my way through to the other side and it slowed me down enough to be able to stop.
Incredibly the only evidence of the incident was a little sprig of hawthorn on the back of my frame and a big jump in my heart rate from my Garmin download. And I never even got a puncture apart from in my legs and under my armpit.
