BA:Cheap tyres at Trago Mills

[I Wilson]

While on my travels around Exeter I went to Trago Mills near Newton
Abbot and picked up a few items including some tyres. I know many will
reply about how bad they are etc but they look pretty reasonable and
have a maximum PSI rating of 65 for the 26x195 tyres I bought. To be
honest they look like the same sort of tyres fitted to most of the
cheaper bikes as standard. The brand is DSI and they are made in Sri
Lanka. I paid £2.35 each for a couple of these;

http://www.dsityre.com/products.php?cat=SLEEK&size=26%20x%201.9%20(50-559)&maincat=BICYCLE&limit=0

or this might be easier;

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K66E26B49

They also had inner tubes for 99p each and various other bits and
pieces. There were a lot more tyres too of various sizes. Generally
Trago Mills prices are quite good but there are exceptions to watch
out for.

Had a good nose around the bike shops in the city centre of Exeter.
Only found a couple plus a rundown Halfords. One shop was very
friendly with reasonable prices it seemed on the high street. They
also had a great selection of interesting bikes. The other was called
something like 'The Bike Shed' and was at the bottom of a very dinghy
building. I kid you not but I can hardly see in there as it was so
dark. They didn't appear to be particularly friendly to a customer
already in the shop. The only bike I could see properly was near a
door as the light was coming in through the doors window and that was
a Cannondale tandem. Looked very nice though for a tandem. I left the
shop with a very negative first impression. I would have thought the
bike shop on the high street would do well. Visually very appealling
and friendly with a good range of bikes you could actually see.
However the bikeshed seemed to stock the better brands generally.
Halfords was one of the worst I'd come across. Really rundown looking
with counters and wall paint not changed since the 1970s. The price
and range of the bikes was generally poor. I suspect the best bike
shops in Exeter are in the trading estates as somewhere as big as
Exeter would surely be able to support more than these 3 shops. 2 of
which looked poorly run.

 

[Martin Wilson]

On 15 Sep 2004 17:32:04 -0700, "MartinM" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>I Wilson wrote:
>> While on my travels around Exeter I went to Trago Mills near Newton
>> Abbot and picked up a few items including some tyres. I know many
>will
>> reply about how bad they are etc but they look pretty reasonable and
>> have a maximum PSI rating of 65 for the 26x195 tyres I bought. To be
>> honest they look like the same sort of tyres fitted to most of the
>> cheaper bikes as standard. The brand is DSI and they are made in Sri
>> Lanka. I paid £2.35 each for a couple of these;
>
>but no 700c's! (they were the shop that was fined for refusing to sell
>fruit n veg in kgs IIRC)

I did get myself some 700c inner tubes at 99p each as spares for my
Raleigh Royal Export but didn't see any such tyres but then I didn't
really look for them specifically. I did look for some 20" by 1.75
tyres and compatible schrader type inner tubes but no luck. One things
for sure Trago Mills are very anti-europe in a big way. You seemed to
get reminded of it constantly by stickers, posters etc.

I also noticed on the DSI site that a lot of their tyres sell for
around 70 cents each so Trago should be able to make a reasonable
profit on these tyres even allowing for transport, wholesalers profit
and VAT.