Wednesday, September 7, 2011

11,000 mile tires...

Specialized Armadillo Hemisphere tires are unbelievable! These were rotated regularly but 11,000 miles is a lot for any tire. This is over the course of about five years too. I didn't just rack up a bunch o' miles in one season. The tires have mostly ridden on my cargo bike and have battled goatheads in the Northwest, actual armadillos in the midwest, and chunks of coal on the road here in the Appalachians. They carried people and large touring loads at different times. The kevlar casing seems to be the key to the durability of these particular tires. I've gone through many other tires due to sidewall cuts.

Coincidentally, both tires messed up in the same week. The tread had just gotten so thin that it tore and started coming off the casing. It was like a bologna (baloney) skin. I was alerted of this problem because the tread was flapping against my fender and it make me think it was either a sidewall bulge or a bent rim. The actual cause was more of a surprise and I was unprepared for this event.


Had to ride these tires in this condition for about a week as I waited for new tires to arrive on the big brown truck. I expected that the casing was probably tougher than the tread so I didn't worry about a blowout. I did have to be careful cornering though because the casing is slick when you hit that spot, plus the tread was wallowing around on the casing a little bit. This gave the bike a bit of a vague feeling in the turns so I slowed down.

No comments:

Post a Comment