First Agattu Puncture

[Cyclezee]

My front tyre went soft, but not totally flat yesterday. I removed the tyre and found a huge thorn had penetrated the standard fit Continental City Ride tyre. As I had a new pair of Marathon +'s in reserve, so I decided the time was right for changing both tyres.

Whilst I was at it I decided to change the tubes for Schrader valve type. After a quick online search of local bike shops, I saw that Halfords were doing a 3 for the price of 2 deal on tubes so I checked availability and placed a reserve and collect order online for Halfords own brand. 3 tubes for £9.89.
45 minutes later in the store, they could only find 1 and was told they had sold 3 of the 4 they had in stock 3 hours earlier
Obviously their stock system doesn't update frequently enough.
They were somewhat bewildered when I asked for my 1 free tube out of the 3 I had reserved to compensate for the inconvenience caused, to my surprise, they gave it to me FOC
Next I went to a local bike shop, Phil Corley Cycles, and got a 2nd tube for £3.99. The new tyres and tubes are now fitted and I have a little more peace of mind

John

 

[frank9755]

Bad luck on the puncture, John. At least it sounds a bit cleaner than your Wisper one!
I have to say that of all the great marketing promotions of our time, doing three for two on inner tubes does not seem the best thought through in terms of intsilling consumer confidence in the quality of the product!
Frank

 

[Cyclezee]

Frank
You have got a good memory, I had forgotten about the dog **** in the dark incident. Now that you have reminded me, I can recall the smell

Halfords 3 for 2 offer is on all brands of tubes, not just their own. Great if you own a tricycle or 3 unicycles which require new tubes

John

 

[Cyclezee]

I have done about 20 miles this morning on the M+'s, not sure whether it is my imagination, but there seems to be more rolling resistance than with the Continental City Rides, even running at 80 psi, 20 psi above the Continental pressures, and a slightly more bumpy ride. I supose avoiding puntures is worth the small sacrifice.

John

 

[flecc]

I'd say that's true on both John. The stiffer ride is from the more rigid tread layer of course. You may remember that I commented in the Extra section of my review as follows:

"The Continental CityRide tyre fitted is a key part in the free rolling performance of the Kalkhoff Agattu, and strong though my allegiance to Schwalbe's Marathon Plus tyres is, I would not change to them on this bike. The puncture resistance built in to these is unlikely to be quite as good as the Schwalbe, but with no hub motor, a very rare puncture is easily dealt with."

Kalkhoff Extra
.

 

[frank9755]

John,
If I can quote myself from another thread this morning, I think those Continental tyres are pretty good - a different class to those Kendas we both had to replace on our Wispers!

I'm a big fan of Marathon Plus having done 2,000+ punctureless miles with them, spread across three bikes, over the last year. My new bike came with Continental Contact tyres - ie the basic one with what they call their 'Safety System' puncture protection as opposed to this higher level 'Security System'. I think these are the same ones as are fitted to the Agattu. I had been minded to replace them with Marathon Plus, but I have to say they have been great. I've now done over 600 punctureless miles on them - a combination of London commuting (including glass dodging) and country touring (including rough bridleways strewn with thorns). Also they roll very well, possibly slightly smoother ride than the Marathon Plus. I think either are excellent and, based on my experience, I feel Agattu owners can be confident that (unlike virtually every other e-bike) the factory fitted tyres are not likely to let them down!

Frank

 

[Cyclezee]

Frank

I examined the Continental City Rides which I replaced with M+'s again this afternoon in closer detail. The rear tyre is still perfect, very little wear after nearly 900 miles, the front one however had 5 pieces of glass emdeded in the slick centre section and the 1 thorn which penetrated the carcase. I would have expected the rear tyre to have picked up more debris due to it carrying more weight, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I'm now considering putting the good Continental back on the rear wheel and putting the M+ on the front wheel of the Agattu diamond frame bike when I get it.

The City Ride tyres supplied as standard on the Agattu are the cheapest in the Continental range and don't have the same level of punture protection as the more expensive Contact range of Continental tyres.

John

 

[flecc]

The City Ride tyres supplied as standard on the Agattu are the cheapest in the Continental range and don't have the same level of punture protection as the more expensive Contact range of Continental tyres.

John

True John, but the more puncture protection there is, the more rolling resistance rises usually, the stiffness that resists the puncturing responsible for that.

When a thin soft tyre absorbs the minor imperfections on the road surface, the bike stays level. A stiffer tyre causes the bike to fractionally rise or fall at each imperfection, in effect travelling over millions of tiny hills and losing energy all the time.
.