July 17th, 2006
Super Motard
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Plenty of Room
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Another weekend, another long ride out together. Since I broke the rear hub of my hardtail we are either out on horribly mismatched bikes, a Pompino and a geared Spot, or fat-tyred full suspension behemoths.
Or we could do as the motorbikes do and go super-motard. Cue one pair of Specialized Fat Boys for Kirsty and a pair of Tioga City Slickers for me. Both are badged up as 1.25″ but the Fat Boys are noticeably thinner on the rim. She gets armadillo puncture protection, I get some tread for wet weather confidence. The tread on our off-road tyres is saved a beating.
Although both tyres are rated much higher I figured that 60psi was enough to be going on with. It was a quick job to fit the tyres, even the Fat Boys slipped onto the Mavic X317s easier than I expected. Which was A Good Thing as within five minutes there was a bang and a hiss and Kirsty’s rear tyre went down, and I was at it with the tyre levers again. Turns out the Continental cloth rim tape couldn’t handle the pressure and had given up the ghost at about 50% of the spoke drillings. Given that I built these wheels up within the last two years that’s piss poor. I should have known though, I don’t bother with their inner tubes after a spate of valve/tube splits. So much for German Engineering.
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Up to 100psi. Eeek.
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Then we put forty-odd miles under our belts riding out towards the Trough of Bowland in the midday sun. Cafe stop included. Our route took in some cracking descents. I half expected the Five Spot to handle like a pig, especially with the rear set quite active, but it didn’t. Big fat slicks, upright position and large brakes makes for mucho-confidence into corners. Think Suzuki Bandit rather than faired sports bike. The suspension wasn’t entirely idle either as I tackled every hump back bridge on the route with gusto.
It looks like this will be the last long road ride out on the Turners as we’ve made an impulse purchase of something far skinnier and suitable…
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