I enjoy trolling my friend Bernard on the subject of tyre widths. Some people will tell you that I ought really to say tyre “height”, but these are the same people who tell you that you should slacken off all the bolts on your “summer” bike when you put it away for the winter, and they can be safely ignored. My friend Bernard is, of course, such a person.
Michael Hutchinson is a writer, journalist and former professional cyclist. As a rider he won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland and competed at the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and once hit 73 mph riding down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns appears in every issue of Cycling Weekly magazine
Bernard despises the way tyres have got wider. I’m running a pair of 28mm tyres on my road bike at the moment, which come up closer to 30mm on the wider rims. They are comfortable and fast rolling, but the best thing about them is forcing Bernie to look at the back one in all its broad glory.
“Those things are ridiculous,” he grumbled on a recent ride. “It’s just fashion. And it’s mindless drones like you that mean I can’t find 19mm tyres for my time trial bike.” Ah, yes, 19mm tyres. We all used to use those. I think what attracted us to them back in the day was the fragility and discomfort. That, and the fact that they looked kind of cool. Pumped up to 180psi they turned your saddle into the hammer-bit of a hammer-drill, but on a smooth road they made a lovely zinging noise. They felt fast. They looked fast. And that’s why you should never trust your instinct. We were wrong. Deeply wrong.
“What, these? I’ll only have them on for the summer,” I told Bernard. “For the dark days of winter I’ve got 32mms. I can’t wait – I’ll be floating along on a cloud of air. It’s going to be brilliant.” It was at about that point that I punctured. There was a spray of sealant over the back of the bike. Bernard was incredulous. His contempt for tubeless is so profound that I’d been saving telling him that it was how I was running my big fat tyres until some blessed day when he got a puncture and I could lord it over him. He was almost speechless. I think the word he was looking for was “Judas!”, but he couldn’t think of it.
However, sealant or not, the tyre went flat, which took all the air out of my argument. He watched with amusement as I started into the as yet slightly alien process of plugging the tyre, and trying to make it seal. The longer I faffed around spinning the tyre back and forth to let sealant into the hole, then checking if it was holding, the more Bernard’s day brightened.
Eventually it became clear that this was the sort of puncture that demands you remove the tyre and put an inner tube in. I removed the tyre with some difficulty. Bernard was elevated to a higher plane of ecstasy.
“If you need any help with that,” said Bernard, taking out a Fig Roll, “don’t ask me. I am a humble bike rider and understand nothing of this new technology. But I’m glad to know that punctures are a thing of the past.”
Sealant dribbled into my shoes. I attempted to shake the last bits of it off the tyre, got my hands covered in gooey crud, and had to resort to wiping it off on my shins. Checking the tyre for old flints or thorns just scraped yet more sealant onto me.
When, at last, I had the inner tube in, and the tyre back on, the mess would have been visible from space.
Bernard didn’t say anything as he threw a leg over his bike and rolled off again. He didn’t have to. We both know it’s going to take me years to regain the upper hand.
