7226 Miles & Still Rollin'

A couple of new Conti GatorHARDSHELL for the distance.

Not me, ding dong, the tires!
John Mestemacher & I had often discussed how many miles we get off a set of Conti Gatorskin tires. We didn't know for  sure as we would often change tires and not pay attention much to mileage.. just running them till you see the cord!

Yes, I finally managed to keep an accurate log of the exact mileage on a 700x28mm G'skin HARDSHELL set from early in the year. For certain rides, I would take my best tires and put them on a different bike. This entailed keeping a written log of the exact mileage on that set of tires. I had several pages of details. The last few months, I just left them on the Fuji carbon bike. 7226 miles on rando routes only. Didn't count the other run-around stuff.

I did have a few flats as the tires wore down, especially the I Got Screwed episode early in the morning on the way to a route start. I rotated tires about every 1000 miles to keep the wear even. After riding the San Marcos Century yesterday, I noticed a flat rear tire today. Looks like a piece of glass. Still some mileage left of those boys, but now the small thorns and glass bits do their work easily.

Doing the Camels To Yaqui Pass in a few days, so time to change over to some new foldable HARDSHELLS. I did notice a difference in Conti's latest rendition. They now have "wear indicators"! You know the2 little holes in the tread area. When they are gone, you're supposed to replace the tires. Ya, right. I'll still run them to the cords!

This time I read the multi-language paper that comes with the tires too. Tells you about inflation and how to change a tire. Good stuff and just reinforces how I now do it.

I've been using HARDSHELL for several years and I think they are better than the regular G'skins.. in strength and longevity. They do weigh a few grams more, but if you get the foldable that negates that. Also, I run 5 lbs of air pressure less than on the regular G'skins to make up for the slightly "stiffer" carcass. HARDSHELLS have a full Duraskin mesh across the full time width as do the regulars. Looks like the real difference is the contact area has a different material under the rubber. Box says "extra rubber"!  And all Gatorskins are sort of expensive. If I didn't get a super deal on them, I would be back using Forte rubber!

Boy, they wear a long time & handle great.
Sizes from 23mm to 32mm for road tires.

more next time,
randorides