Kevlar
Living in Winter Park, with all the bricked streets is an adventure. In addition to the crazily bumpy streets, due to the “designer bricks” that Winter Park insists on installing, there is another problem: flat tires.
Broken glass gets stuck between the bricks and the sharp angles sometimes point up. This causes a lot of flat tires. I used to get a flat tire a month. It was annoying and expensive.
A couple of years ago I found a solution called kevlar.
The first time, I bought kevlar belted tires at extraordinary cost. But then I discovered liners that fit between the tire and the tube. These, too are made from kevlar.
Three or so years later and I haven’t had a single flat tire.
My Pashley came with Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires as factory standard equipment. I suddenly stopped getting punctures. As in Zero.
For the first time in my life, I recently replaced a tire because it wore out. It needed replacing; in places the rubber was completely worn down to the kevlar underneath.
Every previous tire on my Schwinn never had a chance to wear out. Something bad would happen to it and the tire would have to be replaced. Needless to say, that something bad tended to happen when I was going to work or somewhere else that arriving late would not be a good thing.
Eric,
I do not know what you paid for the “extraordinary cost,” but I see that the most expensive Schwalbe Marathon Plus is now $58.85 at:
http://www.schwalbetires.com/node/1323
My Pashley takes the 28″ X 1 1/2″. A big tire for a big bike for a big guy like me.
Since the tire will last well over 10,000 km, it seems to me that unless someone is very poor, the cost is insignificant.
I swear by Panaracer T-Serv PT tires. I use them on my daily commuter/touring bike and I have had only one flat tire in the last 3 years of daily commuting. If I had installed their RiBMo tires, I might have avoided even that one flat.
I, also, don’t know what you mean by extraordinary cost — a Performance Strada K currently costs $14.99:
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes/Product_10052_10551_1089785_-1___400235
I’ve been using these tires for years. I wore my last set down to the Kevlar cords, with no punctures, ever. I carry heavy loads on fairly sketchy road surfaces. Great product.
I also live in Winter Park, and discovered Kevlar as one way to avoid punctures. If you tool around old English three speeds, Schwalbe makes a kevlar tire “delta cruiser” that are only 20 bucks a pop and hold up well. Delta cruisers also come in 28X 1.5 which is what I run on my Raleigh DL-1; they run about 25-30 bucks each. Not that pricy for piece of mind, and no flats!!