lulubel
Über Member
- Location
- Malaga, Spain
My new tyres are Conti Mountain King ProTection, and they're lovely. They went on easily (not quite as easily as the Racing Ralphs, but still without levers), and the box included 2 tubes with presta valves, so I used the full set and pumped them up with the track pump.
(The story of why our track pump doesn't have a working schraeder side is long and not very interesting!)
The track pump said they were at 30psi when I stopped, and I don't believe that for a moment because they felt pretty hard. But I decided to try them like that, and headed into the woods above town (carrying 2 spare tubes just in case) to test them out. The back wheel was slipping a bit on the climb (although not as badly as the RRs had when they were pumped up hard) so I let some air out at the top of the climb, until they felt "a bit squishy" to the thumb test.
The result? Bouncy bike!
It felt great. I could feel the back tyre absorbing the bumps. The difference in feel between the MKs and the RRs is that I now feel like I've got some squashy rubber between the bike and the ground. There's a lot of feedback coming through the bike to tell me what's going on, which I didn't get at all with the RRs - they either rattled around or punctured. The feel is similar to the good parts of what I had with the tyres on my old bike - only better.
I decided to see how well they performed, and pointed the bike at the bumpiest, sharpest, jaggedest (may have made up a word or two there) bits of rocky trail I could find. Then I went down a bit of rocky singletrack that I've avoided with the Cube until now because I knew the RRs would make it unpleasant. I've never enjoyed it so much. I turned round at the bottom and went back up. I did have to get off a couple of times when I was about a bike's length away from making it up over a really steep bit, but that's nothing compared to the 10-20% pushing I've had to do in the past. With a bit more practice, I think I'll be able to ride all the way up.
I rode around a bit more, singing 60s songs - no, I don't know why - found a track that went nowhere, but had great fun going nowhere and back! Was looking off to one side when I glanced back and noticed a very big patch of deep, sticky mud ahead of me, and knew the chances of losing control in it and going over sideways were quite high. I grabbed a handful of front brake - unfortunately, I seem to have learned that it's the one on the left pretty quickly - and let it go again when the back wheel became airborne! My first thought was, "Cool. My first ever stoppie." In my efforts to avoid landing on my side in mud, I nearly landed on my face in it! (At least it would have been a relatively soft landing.)
No visits from the fairy this ride, despite my best efforts, but I'm not going to become complacent. It's early days yet.
One probably bad thing about my new bike and tyre combination .....
The old bike was forcing me to develop some skills and learn some technique because the consequences of not learning it would have been painful. My new bike is already teaching me to be a hooligan.
(I know some of you will want to warn me about being careful and not getting over confident, etc, etc after reading this post, and I know exactly where you're coming from. But I should add that any silliness on my part takes place at low speeds on fairly flat and non-technical sections of trail. As soon as it gets a bit faster or trickier, my fear - or should that be awareness of my own mortality? - keeps me sensible!)
(The story of why our track pump doesn't have a working schraeder side is long and not very interesting!)
The track pump said they were at 30psi when I stopped, and I don't believe that for a moment because they felt pretty hard. But I decided to try them like that, and headed into the woods above town (carrying 2 spare tubes just in case) to test them out. The back wheel was slipping a bit on the climb (although not as badly as the RRs had when they were pumped up hard) so I let some air out at the top of the climb, until they felt "a bit squishy" to the thumb test.
The result? Bouncy bike!
It felt great. I could feel the back tyre absorbing the bumps. The difference in feel between the MKs and the RRs is that I now feel like I've got some squashy rubber between the bike and the ground. There's a lot of feedback coming through the bike to tell me what's going on, which I didn't get at all with the RRs - they either rattled around or punctured. The feel is similar to the good parts of what I had with the tyres on my old bike - only better.
I decided to see how well they performed, and pointed the bike at the bumpiest, sharpest, jaggedest (may have made up a word or two there) bits of rocky trail I could find. Then I went down a bit of rocky singletrack that I've avoided with the Cube until now because I knew the RRs would make it unpleasant. I've never enjoyed it so much. I turned round at the bottom and went back up. I did have to get off a couple of times when I was about a bike's length away from making it up over a really steep bit, but that's nothing compared to the 10-20% pushing I've had to do in the past. With a bit more practice, I think I'll be able to ride all the way up.
I rode around a bit more, singing 60s songs - no, I don't know why - found a track that went nowhere, but had great fun going nowhere and back! Was looking off to one side when I glanced back and noticed a very big patch of deep, sticky mud ahead of me, and knew the chances of losing control in it and going over sideways were quite high. I grabbed a handful of front brake - unfortunately, I seem to have learned that it's the one on the left pretty quickly - and let it go again when the back wheel became airborne! My first thought was, "Cool. My first ever stoppie." In my efforts to avoid landing on my side in mud, I nearly landed on my face in it! (At least it would have been a relatively soft landing.)
No visits from the fairy this ride, despite my best efforts, but I'm not going to become complacent. It's early days yet.
One probably bad thing about my new bike and tyre combination .....
The old bike was forcing me to develop some skills and learn some technique because the consequences of not learning it would have been painful. My new bike is already teaching me to be a hooligan.
(I know some of you will want to warn me about being careful and not getting over confident, etc, etc after reading this post, and I know exactly where you're coming from. But I should add that any silliness on my part takes place at low speeds on fairly flat and non-technical sections of trail. As soon as it gets a bit faster or trickier, my fear - or should that be awareness of my own mortality? - keeps me sensible!)
No idea how I didn't get any snakebites though.
