Cycling: Winter tyres, anyone bother?

Enterprise_1701C

I just change the pressure in my tyres accordingly, if it is rainy or frosty I want more of my tyre in contact with the road so soften the tyre a little, in the dry and in the summer I tend to ride on hard tyres. Not skidded or lost my rear end yet (apart from when a piece of fencing wire wrapped itself round my front wheel on a very busy road that miraculously was empty at the time :eek:, but that is another story).

Scrimps

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

I appreciate that all respondents have been faithful to the thread title but I'd like to focus on the causes of this accident, which have been left unexplained: Could it be that the brakes were applied too soon? (I'm presuming here that they are Vs). It's my habit to apply the rear brake a moment before the front, but I'm now wondering if this could contribute to such an accident as the OP states his rear wheel skidded out to the side.

Ive got disc brakes on my bike. There was a bit of a skid on both tyres I think before the back started to go out. I dont think I was turning but I was intending to so there may have been a slight turn already initiated? I was intending on turning left, so back end sliding to right for me to put left foot down would follow......?

Im thinking my tyre pressures were likely too high for how cold and wet the roads are and sometimes accident just happen? I will look into decent tyres though, I wouldnt get cheapies for my car, but whilst I didnt ask for the cheapest in the shop I didnt pay much attention at what they offered, just asked that they would be good for road and very light off road. I'll probably will check the brakes too, I do recall a couple of instance over the last year of owning this bike where Ive applied the brakes and theyve come on really hard.....forgot about that until typing this to be honest.

I dont ride fast, I usually anticipate things well - I could have made it out in front of the cyclist I stopped for but I thought it more prudent to apply the brakes and let them out first as there is no point rushing these things.

rdr

Sounds to me like the OP was a victim of a diesel spill, you would be amased how much of it there is around. They can be hard to see unless the light is in the exactly the right place, I recently nearly ended up under a car as a result of a spillage on a junction, I have heard you can claim off one of the insurance industry schemes for unidentified drivers if you are injured.

cubegame

esuhl wrote: »

Really? How does that work? I've heard of people running tubeless tyres, but I don't really understand the benefits (or how on earth you could create an air-tight seal).

How can a tubeless set-up be less likely to get a puncture?

Are there any down-sides to running tubelessly?

I'll probably just echo what a couple of other people have said now.


It is true that their is no real weight advantage in running tubeless as what you gain from losing the tube will be lost by adding sealant to the tyres. However, the feel of the tyres is more similar to tubulars and the rolling resistance is much better. In winter conditions you can also run much lower pressures and have no risk of a pinch flat.


I'm running Schwalbe Pro One tubeless and they are a complete game changer when it comes to road tubeless. They are a doddle to mount and unmount from the rim and are lovely and grippy.


They are expensive though and are one of a limited choice of road tubeless tyres. In 18 months of tubeless running I have only had one puncture which required stopping to blow the tyre up (no repair required-the latex simply hadn't sealed before the pressure had dropped too low).

Kernel_Sanders

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

although they're much worse than normal mountain bike wheels.

Don't you mean 'not much worse'?