On 2019-05-01 15:52, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 01 May 2019 07:55:26 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2019-04-30 16:35, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 15:54:35 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2019-04-30 15:14, wrote:
On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 4:35:24 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-04-29 16:02, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 29 Apr 2019 07:16:27 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2019-04-28 15:07, John B. wrote:

[...]


I've been told that the cheap tires in Thailand all made from a
rubber mix that contains a lot of carbon black, which makes them
harder and they wear less and thus are very well regarded by those who
can't afford to buy tires frequently. Unfortunately hard tires also
"grip the road" less well and have minimal traction.


I do not need Tour de France level cornering performance and found them
to be quite adequate for riding. Especially the MTB tires because there
durability and sturdiness counts a lot more than sqeezing the last tenth
of an mph out of a ride.

On both the road bike and the MTB I want beefy sidewalls and so far
tires made in Thailand gave me that, plus a decent number of miles in
terms of wear.

I really don't understand this fetish with how many miles a bicycle
tire lasts. After all, compared to something like auto tires or egg
beaters they are pretty cheap.


How would you like it if you had to switch out the tires on your car
every 2500mi?

Besides, it ain't cheap:

1. SUV, four tires, $70 each so $280 total, 1st set lasted 70000mi and
still had half the tread. I only replaced them because they were around
15 years old.

2. Gatorskin, $45, lasted 2500mi at which point the tread surface was at
bare minimum.

3. Vittoria Zafiro, $13, 2000mi.

Want more? I trust you can do the math.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I don't remember those Zafiro's as having any armor layer.


They don't and I also ran them almost to the bone. Thanks to
thorn-resistant thick tubes plus a tire liners an armor layer is no
longer required on any of my bikes and I can squeeze out the last mile.

If you are so intent on saving the last penny why not just throw the
bicycle away and save all that money on tires. Walking is a far better
exercise, hour for hour, or mile for mile, than bicycling. Or even
jogging or running. A half marathon on Sundays is good exercise.

P.S. You don't even need shoes. Zola Budd broke the world record in
the women's 5000 meters running barefooted.


I walk our dogs every day, about 2mi. So that's around 700mi/year and I
used to wear out one pair of sports shoes per year. It didn't matter
whether they were $70 name brand of $20 non-name so now I always by
no-name. Good sandals are much better, last years, so I wear those most
of the time. However, walking isn't an option if you have to go
someplace 25-30mi away from here. I wouldn't even be back home for dinner.

Bare foot is the think. Sort of a self replenishing thing, the more
you walk the thicker the sole gets. And that isn't a folk story. When
I worked in the remote areas of Indonesia where the people didn't have
shoes I've seen some of our local hire laborers walk around on a steel
barge deck, in the hot sun, with no apparent discomfort.


Same in Africa. That's not necessarily healthy.


But having said that let me tell you that nobody who actually walks
for a living, so to speak, wears "sports shoes" they wear "Army
Boots".


I have seen a photo of a telephone company crew member in Asia climb a
power pole and crawl along a bundle of overhead telecom wires, in rubber
flip-flops. No fall gear.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/