Torn rim ...

When I left for groceries this morning, I felt a small wobble coming from the rear of my XP, as if the rear tire had a small lump. When I touched the side walls of the tire with my fingers while freewheeling, I did not feel much, but I stopped to make sure anyway.
My intitial thought was that the tire had come from underneath the rims' edge. When I looked a bit closer, I ascertained that there was nothing wrong with the tire, but that the rim was torn laterally ! Damn ! I deflated the tire a bit to put less strain on the rim and carefully drove back home. The Mavic rims were installed almost 2 years ago, one would expect them to last longer than that. Okay, I realize that I was lucky that the rim got torn overnight in the garage instead of getting damaged while out riding miles away from home, but still .... Now the weather finally is improving, I'm going to have to miss my favorite bike for a couple of weeks !

Anwyay, I'm going to bring it to my bike shop today or tomorrow, where the XP is gonna be on display. The bike shop is having an open house for the upcoming Pentecost weekend and the owner asked me permission to display the XP in his showroom together with my new Raptobike lowracer. Hopefully I'll be able to ride the XP to the shop without any trouble ....

Serious damage after less then 2 years ....

Update : I managed to get the XP safely to my bike shop yesterday and according to them, the rim was torn because of the tire's pressure, which appearantly is too high for this rim. Can't quiet understand this, since I run the Kojaks at the same pressure than I did with the Supremes (5 bar) and nothing ever happened while riding them.

Last week I received a call from my bike shop that Mavic will replace the rim at their expense. Mavic agreed that it is not normal for a rim to get damaged like this by a tire pressure of only 5 bar. Let's hope they still have the same rim in stock ....

Sunday Morning Ride

Initially I was planning on taking the XP just for a ride to the supermarket. We were out of bread and since some supermarkets are open on Sunday in the Netherlands, I rode to Baarle-Nassau. It was pretty windy and cloudy, but as I came closer to the border, the sky opened up and the sun came through. So instead of returning home after shopping, I decided to spend more time on my bike. Besides the bread I also bought an extra bottle of regular water and I was on my way. I had to start to work at 01.00 p.m.today, so I figured I might enjoy some riding time before going to work.

When I rode from Gilze to Tilburg, I encountered the following road sign :

Can't translate it litterally, but the sign warns bicyclists for a bumpy ride caused by tree roots pushing up the tiles ( wortel = root, opdruk = pressing upward). Haven't heard of read something like this anywhere yet, though it's nice to be warned before you actually feel how bad the road surface is, no ?

When I rode to Goirle, I was pleasantly suprised to discover that they actually have bicycle streets : a road reserved for bicycles. Other traffic is allowed to participate but have to give the right of way to bicyclists. I knew they existed in the Netherlands, but never actually had seen one before. No wonder the Netherlands is one of the leading countries when it comes to bicycling ! Can't imagine the same kind of treatment of bicyclists in my own country, but it's nice to actually see that things can be turned around in favor of the bicycle, instead of motorized traffic. And it made me realize how fortunate I am to be living close to such a bike-friendly country. Most of my bike riding takes place in the Netherlands, if I'm not riding the towing paths near the canal, that is ...

A bicycle street ....

When going through the centre of Goirle, I passed the Irene Street, which was completely turned into the color orange and was renamed Orange Street. As you know, the Dutch are really crazy when it comes to their national soccer team, this is just one of the many ways the Dutch show their support. Unbelievable !

Orange Crazyness ...

By the time I got home, I spent almost 4 hours on the XP, enjoying every minute of it. Let's hope the afternoon shift at work will not be to busy ;-)

New (summer) tires

The Schwalbe Supremes tires were due for replacement and since summer is supposed to be coming, I ordered 2 Schwalbe Kojak 26 x 2.00 tires. I wanted something completely different, not that the Supreme is not a good tire ( I did a little over 10,000 km with them without any flat), but it's rather heavy and not so fast. A friend of mine adviced me to pick the Kojak, which is lighter and supposed to be faster. So a couple of days ago, I replaced the XP's tires.

Tire size is the same, but the Kojak is treadless. It also lacks a reflective lining, but since my rims have 3M Scotchlite stickers on them, that'll be no real problem at night. And to be honest, I quite like the looks of the black sidewalls of the tires !

I will try the new tires as soon as the weather improves, for it has been pretty rainy these last few days.

Schwalbe's Kojak 26 x 2.00

Update : today I used the XP to get groceries just across the border. Wow, what a big difference ! Not only has acceleration improved, but speed too ! I noticed that with the same effort I can now ride between 2 and 3 km/h faster, not bad ! Can't tell anything about puncture proofness or durability, but time will surely tell. At less than half the price of the Supreme, the Kojak is defenitaly staying on the XP for now (thank you Jonathan A. for recommending this tire) !