The Tank™ is on a diet

As mentioned last time, I'm trying to breathe a bit of life into The Tank™, a 30yr-old steel mountain bike that has been through the mill but is seemingly indestructible.

Part of that resuscitation involves putting the whole thing on a diet, and I was quite pleased to have shaved nearly half a kilogram off last time. But why stop there? As it happens, the old girl needed new tyres, the old pair having clocked very nearly 4,000 puncture-free miles.

So my starting point was a 26 x 1.9" Schwalbe Land Cruiser on the front and a 26 x 2.0" Land Cruiser Plus on the rear. Don't ask why they were different widths - that's what happens when a bike shop only has certain tyres in stock. Anyway, they came off and a last-gen pair of new Land Cruisers went on, but narrower: 26 x 1.75". And I was amazed at the weight saving. My admittedly increasingly inaccurate luggage scale reckoned the old front tyre was 700g but its replacement was 350g. And an even bigger reduction came from changing the rear.

The upshot of all this is that The Tank™ now tips the scales at something like 13.25kg, more than a kilo lighter than it was this time last month. And because the tyres were last-gen, i.e. last year's model, they were only £11 each. So my secondary aim of rejuvenating the old girl on the cheap holds up too.

Wondering what I can do next? The seatpost is an obvious candidate but being an old-school MTB it's a funny size: 25.4mm. Don't find too many carbon posts that size. I might have to result to more rudimentary changes, as in pulling the post out and seeing if there's scope for cutting it down a bit. Now, where's my hacksaw...?

The Tyre Glider: is it really a game-changer?

If, like me, you watch cycling videos on YouTube, you might have seen reviews like this for the Tyre Glider, making great claims about how it is a game-changer and that you can say goodbye to tyre levers. I mean, that sounds great, doesn't it? Who wouldn't take a punt on that for a tenner?

Well, it's £13 actually, once you add the postage, but that's still a decent price if the claims are true. So, first impressions - it's an interesting looking thing, not immediately or intuitively obvious regarding how to use it for tyre off/on modes, but easy enough to understand once you watch their instructional video. And at only 23g, it's not going to weigh you down either. So, great in theory ... how about in practice?

As "luck" would have it, I've just had my first puncture of the year, so at last I had a chance to try out my new toy. For context, the punctured tyre was on a Prime Baroudeur SE wheel, shod with a 25mm Continental Gatorskin tyre. Now the Baroudeur is 26mm deep, which is not insignificant for a lightweight alloy clincher, and has a 19mm internal rim. As for the Gatorskin, well ... it's a Gatorskin. Not the most pliant or forgiving, I think it's fair to say. Basically, I was setting the Tyre Glider a fair challenge.

And it fell at the first hurdle. Whilst I could get the Glider seated under the Gatorskin, I just couldn't get it moving enough to remove the tyre. Sure, I could have applied a dab of washing-up liquid here and there, to help, but I'm not always going to be doing this in my kitchen, like today, am I? And maybe I could have pushed harder, or for longer, but I already pushed hard and long enough to make my hand sore (though this wouldn't have been a problem if I'd had cycling gloves on). Anyway, the simple fact is that I could get the Tyre Glider in place but couldn't use it to get the tyre off. Instead, I had to dig out a trusty conventional tyre lever to give me an extra point of leverage - only then could I get the Tyre Glider moving, at which point - hooray - the tyre came off nicely. But not a great start.

So, I was prepared to be underwhelmed when it came to putting the tyre back on - after all, I've always found that the harder job, especially with this wheel/tyre combo. But after getting the Tyre Glider seated on the wheel rim correctly (it took two tries, but wasn't difficult), blimey - I have never refitted a tyre so easily before. Ever. Even that last little bit, you know, the last eight inches that doesn't want to pop back on the rim: just hold the wheel between your legs, position it so that you're pushing down on the Glider (as opposed to sideways), and voilà! On it popped. And without recourse to tyre levers, sweating and swearing, or sore thumbs. Brilliant!

TLDR: a decent addition to your saddle-bag that is a game-changer when it comes to reseating your tyre, but you'd be unwise to discard your tyre levers just yet, in my view. ★★★★☆

BUY: Tyre Glider, currently £9.99 (+ £2.99 P&P) from Tyre Glider

Full disclosure: I bought this with my own money. If anyone wants to give me kit in exchange for an honest review, I'm open to that, but unless I explicitly say otherwise everything I review on here will be sourced and paid for by yours truly.

Swings and roundabouts

What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
- Gertrude Lawrence, "A Star Danced"

I fitted a new seatpost and seatpost clamp last week. As well as looking frankly excellent, they gave me a weight saving of about 85g. Not much, you might say, but then the old seatpost was carbon, so I wasn't expecting too much ... although 85g is nearly two KitKats, so not too shabby.

However, last week I also replaced my quite worn and suddenly very puncture-prone Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech tyres with a pair of folding Continental Gatorskins... and they added 70g.

Gah...

About black hoops

Earlier this year I switched tyres, replacing Schwalbe Durano Plus with Hutchinson Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech. In other words, I replaced wired tyres with much lighter foldables. Strava tells me I've done very nearly 400 miles on the new rubber now, so what's the verdict?

My primary concern with tyres is always puncture resistance. There's nothing that grinds my gears more than squatting down at the side of the road in the pissing rain, getting covered in cack whilst trying to get tyre levers under tight-fitting rubber. Honestly, if I'm within five miles I'd rather walk home, pushing the bike. So I was a little bit disappointed, if I'm being honest, to pick up a puncture in one of the Hutchinsons, despite their move-touted Kelvar-iness. Reader, I walked home, pushing the bike and silently swearing the whole way. But punctures happen. This, like >90% of all the punctures I've had in the last three years, was picked up on a cycle path, where detritus of all sorts accumulates. Honestly, is it any wonder I prefer the road? But I digress - the Hutchinson's puncture can be written off to bad-weather cycling, I hope.

Beyond puncture protection, what else can I tell you? The Hutchinson tyres are much lighter than the Schwalbe, less than half the weight. This, I guess, is down to not being wired... and, you know, not having the extra 5mm of rubber that the Schwalbe's start off with. As it is, I coupled the change of rubber with new lightweight tubes and a shiny new and (guess what) lightweight wheelset, and can really feel the difference. And that's not all - being foldable, the tyres feel a bit more forgiving, more pliant - they soak up the bumps a bit better, is what I think I mean. I say "think" because the difference is marginal... but it is there. This takes a bit of getting used to - I've cycled over bumps and thought, "Uh-oh, tyre feels a bit flat," but it isn't - it just gives a bit more going over whatever the obstacle is. This pliancy probably means they won't last as long as the Schwalbe, but time will tell on that score. One thing I can tell you already though is that they are much harder to get onto the wheel - you might want to think about three levers, rather than two, unless you have thumbs of steel...

Oh, and there's grip. I don't think the Hutchinson's are quite as grippy as the Schwalbe were. Whether this is down to the more pliant rubber or some other characteristic, I'm not sure. What I can tell you is that there are corners I've had to ease off slightly for, in the wet, that I didn't before. Of course, this could just be because I'm arriving at them faster, on my new lighter wheels...

TLDR: lightweight, comfortable hoops that promise much and, thus far, are delivering. Not perfect though: hard to get on, and could be grippier through wet corners. ★★★★☆

BUY: Hutchinson Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech, currently £33.99 from Wiggle

Some new bits

A flavour of some new bits for old faithful...

Hutchinson Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech

Schwalbe Extra Light

SRAM PG950 11-28T 9-speed

Less is more

There are whole corners of the cycling web devoted to weight reduction. Go on, Google "weight weenies", I'll wait.

Quite a rabbit hole, isn't it?

Now I'm not going to get into a bespoke set of bike-weighing scales (yes, they exist) but I have been quite inspired by the thought of upgrading my trusty old road bike, in part inspired by this excellent video. The final push has come from the recent spate of punctures though, prompting me to replace my somewhat worn tyres. So out go the brilliant (until this week) Schwalbe Durano Plus, which have put in well over 2,000 miles in the last nine months. And in come... what?

After extensive Googling, in will come Hutchinson Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech. Yes, you read that right. Kevlar! Whereas the Durano Plus relied on an extra 5mm of rubber on the outer surface to provide sterling puncture protection, the Hutchinson have Kevlar. That, and the fact that they're foldable tyres, rather then the wired Schwalbe, should equate to a fair weight saving. Ditto the new Schwalbe extra light tubes I'd ordered.

That's what I thought when I went to bed last night. This morning, I got the scales out, to see whether this was rational in the cold light of day or whether I was falling down the weight-weenie rabbit hole. The results are in:

Part-worn Schwalbe Durano Plus 700x25c wired	494g	(Unscientifically weighed with, er, kitchen scales)
Hutchinson Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech 700x25c folding	215g	(Claimed)
Potential weight saving of (494g-215g) x 2 tyres =	558g
Schwalbe 700c 18-28c 60mm Presta tube	113g	(Kitchen scales)
Schwalbe Extra Light 700c 18-25c 60mm Presta tube	80g	(Claimed)
Potential weight saving of (113g-80g) x 2 tubes =	66g
Potential total weight saving =	624g

Now part of me thinks brilliant, that's a great saving! And part of me looks at my old-man's paunch and thinks that there are much bigger weight savings to be made, if I could only stay off the flapjacks and Minstrels. But the point is, I may save nearly two thirds of a kilogram just by judiciously replacing things I needed to replace anyway, and without breaking the bank. That's a win, surely?

Next consideration - the wheelset. I weighed the Giant IOU333 front wheel that came with the bike, twelve long years ago, and it clocked 865g with the quick-release spindle in. That's not bad, actually. But I've been looking at the Prime Baroudeur SE Road wheelset from Wiggle (Prime being one of their in-house brands), where the front wheel weighs in at 661g. Assuming a pro-rated saving on the heavier rear too and I could be looking at another 465g of weight saving, just by upgrading my wheels. Except, brilliant value though the Prime wheelset is in the Wiggle sale, it's £175 that I don't actually need to spend...

Diagnosing punctures

Yes, it's puncture season. Yes, my excellent tyres have ~2,000 miles on them. But having repaired an inner tube last night, today's fresh puncture crop seems excessive, look:

And yes, I have checked that there's nothing inside the tyre causing this ... this outbreak of punctures. Four on a five mile ride! Gah!

I've ordered some new tyres, and some brand new tubes. Until then, I've got more patches on the go than a smoking cessation clinic...

A small prick

5mm of thorn, cut from a hedge and left lying on a cycle-path, that's all it takes. And people wonder why I don't like cycle paths...

And I've got good tyres, with excellent puncture protection and durability, and the one that took this thorn only has about 2,500 miles on the clock...oh well.