Gatorskin: WORST TYRE EVAH!

[drubie]

Whats' a bnwt?

brand new whale teeth?
big nice wet tonsils?
baggy never washed trousers?
brumby never was tied? (sport, tie me kangaroo down...that's him hanging on the shed)

If it's any of those, it had better be cheap.

[steveoc]

Brilliant thread .. sorry about your misfortune though.

Handmade in Germany maybe - but by what manner of hand ?

Never know Drubie, you could be in luck - check the site of the cut closely with a magnifying glass, and you might find amongst the human hair beading that there is a sharp fragment of gold tooth filling that is causing the actual problem. At close to $1200 an oz now, that would be a wunderbar surprise, worthy of a spontaneous celebratory street parade.

[Nobody]

Whats' a bnwt?

brand new whale teeth?
big nice wet tonsils?
baggy never washed trousers?
brumby never was tied? (sport, tie me kangaroo down...that's him hanging on the shed)

If it's any of those, it had better be cheap.

brand new with tag

[Pushy]

Whats' a bnwt?

brand new whale teeth?
big nice wet tonsils?
baggy never washed trousers?
brumby never was tied? (sport, tie me kangaroo down...that's him hanging on the shed)

If it's any of those, it had better be cheap.

brand new with tag

Correct - you missed - Baggy never washed test....never mind

[drubie]

The carnage continues.

The latest victim: my pump. Seized solid from pumping up that freakin' Gatorskin.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The closest thing to gold I've ever dug out of a gatorskins was a chunk of quartz that went into one of the glass cuts. It was like a tiny little mine in there.

[alex]

i found with gatorskins, once you have one flat, it is all downhill and the tyre needs replacing

until the first flat happens they are OK but seem to retain all sharp objects within the casing unline any other tyre i have used

i am up to about 5000km on a training wheelset at the moment and no flats yet but give it time (a couple of years ago i swore i would never use them again but couldnt bring myself to spend the required $$$ on schwalbe durano plus tyres, which are amazing by the way)

[Jean]

Conti Gatorskins 700x23, lots of kms, no problems - rate 'em highly and that's on Canberra's coarse and glass strewn junk roads.

[drubie]

Conti Gatorskins 700x23, lots of kms, no problems - rate 'em highly and that's on Canberra's coarse and glass strewn junk roads.

You mean the well maintained, billiard table smooth, regularly swept, nicely engineered race track that has one piece of gravel every 200 metres? Canberra has the best roads in Australia (I used to live there).

You could exclusively run Vittoria CX Tubulars and still get 10,000km out of them in the ACT. I would put it to you that Canberra has the finest, most expensive road system in the western world. The Sultan of Dubai marvels at Canberra asphalt. Bill Gates tried to buy 20m square of Canberra asphalt for his mansion driveway but couldn't afford it. Continental used the ACT as a test bed for their Taterskins and pronounced them "tough enough for Australia" - not knowing that the rest of the country is covered in razor sharp gravel roads that are spray painted black occasionally

[twizzle]

Until I switched first to Specialized Armadillo's and then to Micheling Krylions, I'd never realised how prone the Conti's (various types) were to peeling open like a banana from the smallest of cuts.

Re. cuts through the tread though - those are perfect for those self-adhesive patches that I refuse to use on tubes anymore.

[Missy24]

Conti Gatorskins 700x23, lots of kms, no problems - rate 'em highly and that's on Canberra's coarse and glass strewn junk roads.

You mean the well maintained, billiard table smooth, regularly swept, nicely engineered race track that has one piece of gravel every 200 metres? Canberra has the best roads in Australia (I used to live there).

You could exclusively run Vittoria CX Tubulars and still get 10,000km out of them in the ACT. I would put it to you that Canberra has the finest, most expensive road system in the western world. The Sultan of Dubai marvels at Canberra asphalt. Bill Gates tried to buy 20m square of Canberra asphalt for his mansion driveway but couldn't afford it. Continental used the ACT as a test bed for their Taterskins and pronounced them "tough enough for Australia" - not knowing that the rest of the country is covered in razor sharp gravel roads that are spray painted black occasionally

[familyguy]

Much anger in you I sense...

[drubie]

Since he died, and he was one tough little dude, maybe we can cook up some...

YODASKINS!

Out of his wrinkly green carcass.

Ride them, you must!
Puncture, they will not!
Essential for your training they are!

[Sweeper59]

Ever noticed that Yoda looks like a cane toad?

Maybe they should make tyres out of cane toad skins - they're pretty tough buggers and it would help reduce their numbers.

They're making their way south from Qld, there's probably cane toads around Armidale already.

[drubie]

Ever noticed that Yoda looks like a cane toad?

Maybe they should make tyres out of cane toad skins - they're pretty tough buggers and it would help reduce their numbers.

They're making their way south from Qld, there's probably cane toads around Armidale already.

They don't like the cold - when they come south, they stick to the coast. Brilliant brand name for a tyre though, should ask Cheng Shin to make some for me.

[Jean]

Conti Gatorskins 700x23, lots of kms, no problems - rate 'em highly and that's on Canberra's coarse and glass strewn junk roads.

You mean the well maintained, billiard table smooth, regularly swept, nicely engineered race track that has one piece of gravel every 200 metres? Canberra has the best roads in Australia (I used to live there).

That Canberra must be in a paralell universe. The one I know has cr@p bike paths (some of which I must admit have recently been fairly well resurfaced), the roads are resurfaced in coarse chip (which is getting coarser and more poorly laid if the recent works in Belconnen are any guide) and there is so much glass (especially within cooee of any of Canberra's classy 'taverns') that the mind boggles. Road sweepers are so scarce that I posted a thread not that long expressing my amazement when I actually did see one: http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=21101. This one might interest too: http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=23053. The Canberra roads of legend disappeared some time after self-government and are now only found in the Parlaimentary triangle and any legacy bitumen that hasn't had any work done since about 1990!

That reminds me I need to report two fields of glass within 150m of each other on Belconnen Way which has been bothering me this last week.

Tyres are like chains and lube. Everyone rides and uses them them differently and and either swears by them or curses them on a set of very subjective and changable criteria where blind luck often plays a considerable role. Sure I've had Gatorskins trashed by a piece of gravel (on one of those Canberra roads of gold you mention), but on balance I reckon they've been good tyres which put up with a lot of abuse. Certainly the gashes and cuts I find in the tread pattern from which I did NOT get a flat would seem to be some evidence of their utility. My last Gatorskins went in the bin because they were worn, not because they were trashed by road debris (despite the cuts and what have you)

Rubinos or Armadillos may be better, I don't know as I've never used 'em, but in my experience Gatorskins work as advertised.

[drubie]

the roads are resurfaced in coarse chip (which is getting coarser and more poorly laid if the recent works in Belconnen are any guide) and there is so much glass (especially within cooee of any of Canberra's classy 'taverns') that the mind boggles.

Welcome to Australia, Jean!

[kukamunga]

Gator Hardshells available locally

[Christine Tham]

interesting. i have 700x28 gatorskins, have ridden over gravel and glass (including broken bottle), no punctures yet (touch wood).

would i buy them again? probably not - don't seem to handle too well in the wet. haven't slid out or anything, they just don't seem very grippy, at least compared to the gp4000s.

[ghettro]

I've done 1000+ km's on mine and only one flat on the front with some glass. Granted they aren't particularly thick or resistant to punctures, but nothing is really at it's weight range <300g/tyre.

[drubie]

kukamunga, from the website:

MOAR is what you get!

After extensive butt scratching, a long game of flicked booger racing down the office window and feedback from karaoke machines all over the world showed us that a new type of tyre marketing was in demand. Our Taterskin race bike tyre had filled a nasty gap in the shed wall for hardcore commuters but they wanted moar; MOAR skin lost to crashes; MOAR punctures; MOAR flapping threads, MOAR time stuck in the rain straining their thumbs trying to stretch our patented "just a little too small" bead over their rims...

Taking the Taterskin as our base, we've added a third layer of household refuse into the tyre machine to make the TATER EGGSHELL.

We've also added a wider range of recreational drugs to our daily intake so we can sell this stuff with a straight face!

Add this to the Taterskin multi-tater-eyes on the outside of the casing and you have the finest tyre that can possibly be made from what used to be in the compost bin. MOAR old newspapers, MOAR coffee grinds and MOAR human hair in an exquisite ratio designed to save the planet and our worthless hides from the unemployment queue!

Oh HELL YES! The last lot of Continental tyres worked out so well, I want MOAR!

[Mulger bill]

GOLD!

[DaNmAn]

Just ride in the rain within 500m of a bit of glass, it will be magnetically attracted, slice through the gatorskin unimpeded by the egg noodles the casing is made of, cut your tube and leave a shard embedded in the casing that will slowly but surely saw it's way down j-u-s-t enough that every time you go to the shed, you'll have a flat.

This is a universal slick problem in the wet, not just Gatorskins.

[alex]

would i buy them again? probably not - don't seem to handle too well in the wet. haven't slid out or anything, they just don't seem very grippy, at least compared to the gp4000s.

agree with this, they really are a summer only commute/training tyre

in the wet for training i quite like the vittoria pave evo (green one), very flat resistant and is the best 'in the wet' handling tyre i have used

the only problem is they are a bit pricey and dont last all that long

[drubie]

This is a universal slick problem in the wet, not just Gatorskins.

I don't think it is - the Vittoria Rubino doesn't seem to do it, but the rubber compound isn't as, I dunno, shiny. It's "slick" but It's rougher, it doesn't seem to slice as far or as fast or as deep. The Vittorias however wear out much faster on my bikes which is why I tried the Taterskin which the LBS recommended. Maybe I just ride through nastier bits of town than they do

[Beetle]

What do you all do when you see a patch of glass? With my uber chunky mountian bike mud tyres I just ride through with a smile, but with slicks.......

Do you ride around, and hope there are no stray pieces? Or stop, dismount, pick up bike, walk it around, then when you're three or four kilometers up the road put the bike down and get back on? Or isn't four ks far enough for the magnetism that Taterskins have for glass and debris?