Rock Hard

Levering on new tyres on at 9 o'clock at night in the pitch black (I mean even owls were flying into trees black) in the pits at Amann Valley last year was tricky, but successful. Then pumping them up with Dickie CoBuilt's cigarette-lighter powered pump was a laugh; especially because of the pathetic comedy suck-blow-rattle it made, was also successful. But come day break, it turned out that the tyre bead hadn't popped out onto the rim. So I rode the bike illegally to the nearest garage, but it was a Sunday and they weren't open, and there was no airline lying around. Anyway what the hell, it doesn't matter if the tyres are all wonky, the track is all wonky anyway right? And I never bothered sorting them for my few remaining race meets.

But seeing as this week I've been trying to get the bike slightly more race worthy (the rear sub-frame is still cock-eyed after crashing at Stoke), I decided to take the loose wheels down to my local friendly Texaco. They are the only garage I have come across that has a
free air-line, so you can inflate and deflate until the mission is accomplished. Even charged with washing-up liquid I still had to pump the bastards up to 80psi / 5.5 Bar before they seated properly, then letting them back down to 28psi / 1.9Bar, which is still too hard, but I'll wait until I'm trackside before dropping them further to ± 18psi /1.24 Bar. BP