This Space for Rent

Oh, right, that’s why the tires are starting to look a little worn…

When I repaired the mlcm’s rear flat tire yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that the rear tire was getting pretty worn (decorative tread not only worn smooth but the tire was starting to square off. “What’s going on?” I thought “these tires are not even two months old and they’ve worn this much?

But then I counted the miles I put on them. I ordered the tires around around the time of the Multnomah Falls populaire, got them around the time everything went utterly and completely to hell with a couple I’d been riding with, and put them onto the mlcm right after I got a flat that threatened to defeat the <9hr ride I’d done up to Ripplebrook and back.

And in the seven weeks since then I’ve ridden 2000 miles on the mlcm (2300 miles in total, but most of my riding has been brevets and permanents, which these days are the exclusive province of the mlcm.)

(I’d also ridden an already worn chain and cassette for 1600 miles, but replaced them because the cassette started to skip when accelerating and I didn’t want anything to slow me down on the 400k preride (well, at least I didn’t have any mechanical issues slowing me down, which was good.))

2000 miles on a pair of Ruffy Tuffies is pretty good. I should be thankful that these 1000+ mile months only happen 4-5 months out of the year.