According to tradition set down by the One (Geared) True Cycling God, Wednesday night is night ride night. However, it's raining outside - and this week I've got no-one to go with (hint, hint any similarly placed cyclists in Edinburgh), so I'm staying inside and writing about SingleSpeeding instead (aren't you lucky). Though what I want to talk about this time is not an exclusively SingleSpeed problem, indeed it's one that annoys and divides all cyclists with dogmatic vehemence comparable to that level experienced by the residents of Israel and its environs over the ownership of Jeruselum: tyres, inner tubes, and punctures.
Though before we leap headlong into this minefield, I should provide some background. Last week I tore a tyre. It wasn't pretty, and (because it happened in the courtyard outside my flat block) it wasn't even that impressive - a piece of glass literally tore me a new one. Now, because tearing a tyre (unless you're the wildest sort of cheapskate eccentric) is terminal, I needed to buy a new one. And because I had a club ride to go on the next day, I had to buy it from a bike shop.
Because I had to go to a bike shop, I couldn't order the tyre I usually plump for off the internet (a yellow Panaracer Fire XC Pro, don't you feel better for knowing that?). I could get a red tyre of the same type, but then I'd have one yellow, and one red tyre - which although I could try and pass off as an ironic statement, I don't think a sweary lycra clad mud-mad has quite the hipster cred to work that. So because of my (I now realise, stupid) decision to clad my bike in yellow tyres, I had to get a black tyre - which, because of the stocks in the local shops, meant I had to get a pattern I'd never tried before.
I had entered the difficult and dangerous world of asking other cyclists for tyre advice.
I should quickly mention why I usually go for the tyres I go for: my dad told me they were good when I was very small. True to what The Amazing Randi (no, really, that's his name - go look it up) says about smart people believing non-smart things because they were told them when they were young, I have stuck to Panaracer Fire XCs for over a decade because my dad (who is a world authority on almost nearly everything) told me they were good. Having said that, they clag up with mud at the slightest provocation, and make the most appalling racket above thirty miles an hour on asphalt.
Needing new tyres, I stepped breezily into my local bike shop and asked what they could offer. Having established that I was going to be encountering mud from time to time, and that I didn't want to shell out the GDP of a small African nation (or even a middling sized one for a particularly lustrous pair of race tyres), I was presented with a few options. "But you don't want these ones, because you'll ruin them in an afternoon," the man said. "And these others here will be slippery as a whale's intimacies until you've broken them in properly." (I'm paraphrasing).
So I chose the tyre that hadn't compared infavourably to excited sea-mammal gynecological regions. Turns out it's a Continental Mountain King. And it's ace - not least because I get to hum Hall of The Mountain King every time I start on a ride. Or at least, it was ace. I turned up to a ride with some mates (never mind what I said at new year, we're sticking with "riding mates" for now) and was immediately scolded for not only having mis-matched tyre colours (something I was expecting, and was ready with the argument that mis-matched tyre colours are as elegant as a fine wine made from a blend of grapes), but for being the retail chump of the millennium for permitting a sales person to talk me into buying the waste of kevlar, rubber and steel I'd encased my wheel with. Apparently, they'll slide off wet tree roots like warm butter off more warm butter, and I better not be planning on going anywhere rocky any time soon - unless I like the taste of rocks.
And herein lies my point. Most tyres are fine, and you'll work with what you've got. Like most trivial minutiae in life, we'll find a way to catagorise it - and use those catagories to jeerily abuse our friends when they're mildly hung over (my hangover free 2012 took a nosedive after being enticed to a nightclub full of fellow engineers). But do mix it up. Try different tyres occasionally. I would say that if you're SingleSpeeding, a Panaracer Fire XC on your back wheel is probably an excellent choice, but you're still going to run out of torque and grip on muddy hills - so choose what you like. Whatever you do, don't use your tyres as an excuse. Unless they're clearly on their last legs, or are definitely unfit for purpose (ever done the "accidental cyclocross" thing on a road bike through a farmyard three inches deep in manure?), you're going to be fine. If I had a quid for every time I've heard "I would ride that, but I've brought [apparently inferior tyres], whereas I need [imperceptibly different rubber circles]," I'd be able to support Scottish distilleries in a much more enthusiastic manner than I currently do. If you don't like riding down wet rocks, just say so - and everyone will nod and understand (and then we'll grin when you make an arse of yourself trying to carry your bike down them while wearing cycling shoes).
I realise I haven't talked about punctures - I'll save that for another (less confused) time (and I also promise I'll get back to that review of chain tenisioners). But one last piece of housekeeping: IronHep (I think he capitalises it like that). George is a guy I went to university with (and he's alright, despite being a triathlete of the most sordid and peverted variety). He's a far more serious and sane cyclist than I could hope to be (he even runs and swims too, ladies), and is doing the Iron Man later this year (I hear that's pretty serious, they don't even have a beer shortcut). Take a stop by his blog for a glimpse of a slightly more serious trainer.
Apologies for having accidentally written a blog post completely about cycling, but on a cycling blog that will occasionally happen. Happy SingleSpeeding!
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