A customer dropped off a Racing Zero with me.
It's got that stylish red-spoked look with just one black spoke on both wheels front and rear—something I'd serviced before.
Since it was used in a race, they asked me to check the wheels for trueness just to be safe,
but they were almost perfectly true and the hubs showed no damage at all.
Basically all I did was fix
a bar-shaped magnet that the customer brought in to a position they specified,
securing it with heat-shrink tubing.
I attached the front magnet to the same spoke so it wouldn't get lost.
As for where they'd been riding,
it was the Paris-Roubaix course.
They'd raced the Paris-Roubaix Challenge, which is a citizen's race, and
gave me a tote bag that looked like a participation prize, along with
a miniature Paris-Roubaix trophy.
There's a plaque that reads Saturday the 13th, April 2019, so I asked
if this was actually the participation prize, and if so,
I couldn't accept something that important. Turns out
the participation prize was separate, and this was a replica
sold at souvenir shops (though it does have the date engraved on it...)
Since they wanted a spare tire, I prepared a TUFO S3 Lite <215g
(S3 Lite, two hundred fifteen grams or less) with
rim cement already applied and folded
for carrying under the saddle/bottle cage configuration.
It's the tire on the far left in the image above.
Next to it is an Elite Jet <160g folded for under-saddle carry,
then an S3 Lite <165g (the yellow sidewall shown is discontinued)
folded for jersey pocket carry,
and finally an S3 Lite <135g (discontinued, successor model is Elite <135g)
also folded for jersey pocket carry.
TUFO tires have no seams due to their manufacturing process,
making them compact when folded,
but the lightweight models without puncture belts become small at the cost of
having lower performance as a spare, so be aware.
Also, TUFO tires
require 8–12 psi for standard models (only the far left in the image above),
and 10–15 psi for lightweight models (the three on the right)
which creates the problem that small inflators struggle to reach proper pressure.
The tires folded for jersey pocket carry in the image above
are a second spare tire, and I recommend carrying them as insurance for insurance,
while the first spare should ideally have somewhat thicker tread.
For TUFO, I suggested to the customer that
around the S3 Lite <215g is about as far as you can go before moving into the
"second spare tire" category instead of the first.
I make sure to keep "wide rubber bands for binding tubular tires"
in various sizes on hand.
Just to be clear, they're not for use as brake caliper return springs.
I laid out Continental's budget modeland
the only one not made in Germany but rather in Thailand—
in other words, made by Lion Tires (→here)
the Giro (→here) alongside the TUFO S3 Lite <135g.
Budget tires actually have an advantage when folded for under-saddle carry:
they fit nicely into a bottle cage (the outer diameter becomes about the size of a bottle).
It's got that stylish red-spoked look with just one black spoke on both wheels front and rear—something I'd serviced before.
Since it was used in a race, they asked me to check the wheels for trueness just to be safe,
but they were almost perfectly true and the hubs showed no damage at all.
Basically all I did was fix
a bar-shaped magnet that the customer brought in to a position they specified,
securing it with heat-shrink tubing.
I attached the front magnet to the same spoke so it wouldn't get lost.
As for where they'd been riding,
it was the Paris-Roubaix course.
They'd raced the Paris-Roubaix Challenge, which is a citizen's race, and
gave me a tote bag that looked like a participation prize, along with
a miniature Paris-Roubaix trophy.
There's a plaque that reads Saturday the 13th, April 2019, so I asked
if this was actually the participation prize, and if so,
I couldn't accept something that important. Turns out
the participation prize was separate, and this was a replica
sold at souvenir shops (though it does have the date engraved on it...)
Since they wanted a spare tire, I prepared a TUFO S3 Lite <215g
(S3 Lite, two hundred fifteen grams or less) with
rim cement already applied and folded
for carrying under the saddle/bottle cage configuration.
It's the tire on the far left in the image above.
Next to it is an Elite Jet <160g folded for under-saddle carry,
then an S3 Lite <165g (the yellow sidewall shown is discontinued)
folded for jersey pocket carry,
and finally an S3 Lite <135g (discontinued, successor model is Elite <135g)
also folded for jersey pocket carry.
TUFO tires have no seams due to their manufacturing process,
making them compact when folded,
but the lightweight models without puncture belts become small at the cost of
having lower performance as a spare, so be aware.
Also, TUFO tires
require 8–12 psi for standard models (only the far left in the image above),
and 10–15 psi for lightweight models (the three on the right)
which creates the problem that small inflators struggle to reach proper pressure.
The tires folded for jersey pocket carry in the image above
are a second spare tire, and I recommend carrying them as insurance for insurance,
while the first spare should ideally have somewhat thicker tread.
For TUFO, I suggested to the customer that
around the S3 Lite <215g is about as far as you can go before moving into the
"second spare tire" category instead of the first.
I make sure to keep "wide rubber bands for binding tubular tires"
in various sizes on hand.
Just to be clear, they're not for use as brake caliper return springs.
I laid out Continental's budget model
the only one not made in Germany but rather in Thailand—
in other words, made by Lion Tires (→here)
the Giro (→here) alongside the TUFO S3 Lite <135g.
Budget tires actually have an advantage when folded for under-saddle carry:
they fit nicely into a bottle cage (the outer diameter becomes about the size of a bottle).