Quoted message said:I don't know why, but there are a lot more thorns on the road than
usual this Fall. Fall is the season when the thorns and thistles lie
insidiously on the road. You can't see them, so you can't avoid them.
When you return from a 30-mile ride, you have about 4 thorns in your
tires, which are slowly deflating, even though you thought you had been
wiping them off regularly as you rode...
And you don't use tyresavers?
These can be made at home if you like, simply cut off a length from an
old spoke, bend this in the middle into a curve of the same contour as
your tyre, then bend the ends back and parellel for 2 prongs of about
2.5cm. Make another wire piece, bent to achieve a loop with two prongs
of about 2cm long-- this piece will be bolted onto the rear of your
brake mount and point forward or backward depending on if rear or front
brake. I prefer both pointing forward so a bit of extra bending is
required for the brake mount wire piece. Get some flexible plastic
tubing (I use the thick, clear stuff that people sometimes use for
aquarium and garden pool pumps), use sections of about 3-4cm each of
this to connect the 2 wire peices. What you should have is something
that sits above or just in touch with your tyre, shaped to the tyre's
contour and is bolted to the brake mount. Drag should be minimal. It
simply catches anything that strikes the tyre and has yet to penetrate
on the next turn of the wheel. Works for the local variety of thorns and
most glass. The fine details of construction and materials are really up
to you, experiment if you wish.
Doesn't work well with knobbly tyres though.