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pedros yellow tyre levers

cycling has a subset of murphy's law all to itself. the very day that a member of the sunday ride suggests riding up the steepest hill in the vicinity will be the day you chose to ride the bike fitted with 53/39 matched to a 25 biggest sprocket. everyone else will be riding a compact. and if, like me, you have more bicycles than seat packs, fetching a different one than used yesterday will result in not noticing that the seat pack is still on the bike in the shed until past the point of no return. that'll also be the sunday when it's your turn to pay for the coffees and you can mentally visualise the tenner still sitting on the kitchen table.

but by far the most onerous feature of this variation on the law of karma is the almost inevitable puncture at sometime over that sterling career. for starters, any rapid deflation of an inner tube will almost always be on the rear wheel (the muckier of the two) and it'll happen at the furthest point from home. in my case, anywhere in the vicinity of saligo bay will (not) do nicely thanks. with the contemporary difficulty of fitting almost any new tyre to its matching rim, i can't be the only one who rides far and wide in fear of having to remove a tyre to fix a puncture?

the tried and tested method of shifting a tyre from the rim was mostly to use two tyre levers. force one under the tyre bead and wrestle it over the edge of the wheelrim, and hook it onto a spoke. then do likewise with a the second lever and everything ought then to resemble the effort of slicing a hot knife through butter. for me at least, that is very rarely the case. and even if that second tyre lever manages to be slid under the bead, any attempt to slide it clockwise around the rim to release the remainder of the tyre will utlimately fail miserably, yet result in a remarkably sore thumb.

the ambient temperature will, of course, be just a tad below zero. and it'll be raining.

my last attempt to start the above process, resulted in severe bending of the first lever before it ultimately snapped, leaving the uppermost portion stuck under the tyre. thankfully, the latter process occured adjacent to the bike shed, the only unfortunate result being a flurry of expletives. fortunately, i have in my possession an original pedros milk dud tyre lever, the only surviving example of what was initially a pair.

apparently these were manufactured from recycled plastic milk cartons, advertised by a milky white appearance. they were (and in the case of my sole surviving example, are) possibly the strongest tyre levers known to mankind. if the avengers rode bicycles, this would have been the very pair of levers concealed under the saddle.

thankfully the research and development branch of the tyre lever department at pedros' headquarters in boston, massachusetts has not lost sight of the needs of the cyclist suffering the iniquities of murphy's law. and with one or two tyre manufacturers now offering clinchers made in the image of their tubulars, strength of lever has become ever more paramount. despite referring to them as tire levers (they even spell it that way on the european website), all is forgiven in the face of such exemplary tools. now safely ensconced in my under-seat pack, i lead a far more carefree existence, happy in the knowledge that when murphy invokes his legal necessities near to saligo bay, i have the appropriate armaments to deal with the expected unexpected.

at only around £3 a pair and available in henri desgrange yellow or giro d'italia pink (how i long for a pair of the latter), it would be worth acquiring truckloads of the blighters.

yes, really.

pedros tyre levers. pedros products are distributed in the uk by 2pure

sunday 28 december 2014