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Archives for April 2014

Bloody fingers

Decided that the quickest way to remove a perfectly good vintage Dura-Ace hub from a taco’d rim was to cut it out with bolt cutters. All went well except that the cut ends were VERY sharp. I now have a nice 234g Dura-Ace 7400 front hub all ready to build up, along with shredded fingers…

Tyre report

SONY DSCI bought a pair of 23mm Schwalbe Lugano tyres (folding variety) in December and fitted them initially to my track bike before switching them to the Rourke. To date they had covered approx 1750 miles.

In that time I suffered one rear wheel puncture, not at all bad considering I was riding through the winter on the roads of Northamptonshire. The rear had gained quite a few nicks and small cuts but nothing worrying.

However, the rear developed a carcass failure yesterday and is no longer rideable. The file pattern tread on the rear had worn smooth on the rear but was more visible on the front.

Costwas  £19.10 for the pair.

I was pleased with the puncture resistance, they were easy to fit to my campag rims, unlike Michelin Pro 3’s. They felt fast although this is quite a subjective feeling. However a carcass failure at 1750 miles is disappointing. I am now considering some Continental GP 4 Seasons, but at £30 each they would need to last at least 5000 miles to be comparable!

UPDATE: After switching the front tyre to the rear it did another 1123 miles making ~2900 miles in total.

The front tyre after 1750 miles

The front tyre after 1750 miles