Monday, June 3, 2019

Re-shoein’ The Boone



Over the years I have used this blog to affirm and reaffirm my affection for Continental Gatorskin tires. They are great, great, great. I recommend them without reservation. I have used the 700x25 Gatorskins for tens of thousands of road miles, both in training and in competition. And my recommendation now extends to the 700x32 variety, which I experienced for the first time on Sunday and again this afternoon.

Having retired the trusty Diamondback Steilacoom (still looking for a buyer, by the way), I’m asking my Trek Boone to do triple duty as a responsive cyclocross racer, a stalwart gravel grinding steed, and a reliable recreation trail bike. I have two hot-swappable sets of Shimano Ultegra wheels dedicated to the Boone. The wheelsets were identical out of the box, but I have set them up differently for my particular needs. The cyclocross race set is tubeless with, of course, race-only cyclocross tires and a wider range cassette. The gravel grinder / recreation trail set has a smaller cassette—rec trails are almost dead flat, after all—and now these new Gatorskins, which are more than enough for the tame gravel roads and rec trails of southeastern Wisconsin. I’m expecting much longer tire life from the Gatorskins than I was getting from the second-tier cyclocross tires I had been using on the Eisenbahn, the Wild Goose, and the like.

Fifty miles down … who knows how many miles to go?

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