Monday, Sep 14 2015
Yesterday the bike didn’t feel quite right during the sporting part of the ride. At one of the stops I checked and saw that while there was some life left in my rear tire it wasn’t much. Probably not enough to get to Sequoia Park and back later this week. I tried that trick 12 years ago and some friends wound up making an unscheduled ride to Fresno as a result. I don’t think they’d be as forgiving if I pulled that trick again.
New tire
Worn tire
Off the bike
Anyway, I’ve had a spare rear waiting for almost a year. It is an Anakee III which was unobtainable for a while. When the one I ordered transitioned to “back ordered” I mounted a Conti Trail Attack. That’s what has been on the bike for the last 9K miles.
New tire mounted
It took forever to get the old tire off and the new tire on, partly because it wasn’t sunny today so the “leave the the new tire in the sun to soften it up” trick wasn’t available. Eventually I got the Conti off, the wheel clean, the Michelin mounted and balanced, and the wheel back on the bike.
Look what I found
I took a closer look at the Conti while cleaning up and discovered that I’d run over a nail at a very shallow angle. I lifted it up a bit to take that picture. The nail hadn’t punctured the tire yet. I’ll never know if it would have had I kept riding on that rubber a while longer.
Another thing I noticed is that I was right at one of the wear bars in the center of the tread. There was still life in the tire if I looked at some of the other wear bars. It didn’t feel like there was any life left when riding the twisties.