I should say in advance that this posting is going to be a bit technical. It’s all to do with my new Schwalbe Marathon Plus back tyre – yes, I knew that would get your interest.
You see, while it has long been my tyre of choice for road trips they have recently changed the design ditching the Kevlar lining, which seemed to be its main point of difference, and substituted an extra layer of rubber below the tread so that any invasive sharp object does not penetrate far enough to cause a puncture.
So I installed one of these newmatic wonders just before I left home but immediately found that the extra rubber causes the tyre to rub on my mudguard mounting – still with me?
Never mind I thought, the excess ‘flash’ rubber left on the surface of the new tyre would quickly wear down as the tyre rolled along the road and the rubbing would stop. Hopefully, somewhere around Canterbury.
What is more – and this is the clever bit – the mudguard mounting would then serve to knock off any of those pesky stones which may adhere to the tyre before they could do any damage. The idea was so good I was about to file a patent.
The trouble is that it does not work. As I found out today on the Somme Canal Path, just short of Amiens, my first real encounter with grit. All that happens is you pick up a stone and that forms a good basis to collect some more, until very soon the back of the bike sounds like a rusty Ferris wheel. Goodness knows what it would be like on a muddy track.
So it’s back to the drawing board and the pressing need to remove the back wheel and cut off a little of that mounting.
But I’m OK with it all. For we must be phlegmatic in the face of adversity, or to adapt a quote from Robert Pirsig’s book: It's the sides of the mounting which must claim the knife, not the top. And if you can track down the original then you get to be 'eclectic bloke of the week’. Alongside me.
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