thewashingmachinepost




..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

gadgetry

kool-stop tyre bead jack

when i was a great deal younger, whenever i came across a widget or gadget in the shed, the point of which escaped me, my father would tell me that it was for removing boy scouts from horses' hooves. naturally, it was intended as a humorous remark, but one that i only found funny when i became a bit older. i have to say that, when repeating the same joke in more recent times, it has rarely been met with laughter. whether this has anything to do with the scout movement being held in lower regard than was once the case, or whether the concept of removing foreign bodies from horses' hooves has lost its relevance, i know not.

but, if anything, the era of the gadget is surely right now, and has been for a number of years. ever since the advent of the iphone, to be honest. an architect friend of my dad's was one of the early adopters of the 'car phone' having had one fitted in his mercedes convertible. in order to emphasise this fact, the message heard on calling this phone was often "i'm sorry, i'm in right now. leave your name and number, and i'll call you back when i'm out."

i, of course, do not own a mobile phone, and i'd prefer it to remain that way, though i do hope i won't be obtuse about it; if it becomes an absolutely necessity to exist in modern times, i figure i would reluctantly accede. however, watching teenagers paying for their purchases by swiping an apple watch over the card machine, often has me concerned for the well-being of the current generation.

my daughter lives in close proximity to glasgow city-centre, reachable by train from either queen street or central low-level stations. the last time i visited was on a sunday when the timetabling from central does not offer a direct train, requiring a change at partick. when i boarded the train at central station, everyone (and i mean everyone) in the carriage was either looking at, or listening to their phones. when i alighted at partick, everyone on both platforms was doing likewise. and when i boarded my final train for the day, once again, everyone in the carriage was engaged in some form of phone activity.

kool-stop tyre bead jack

to make matters even worse, the woman who preceded me leaving the station, followed the same route for the most part, looking at her mobile phone rather than watching the road and pavements around her. as a phone agnostic, i wonder what it is that folks are doing on their phones, and what they did before the gadgets existed? would the train carriages now resemble scenes from a zombie movie if mobile phones disappeared overnight (oh how i wish)?

from a cyclist's point of view, surely the ultimate gadget of desire would be campagnolo's 'big corkscrew', an expensive and efficient item, the effectiveness of which can easily be supplanted by far cheaper offerings from your local averagemarket. the point, of course, is that those from tescos or asda don't say 'campagnolo' on the handle.

however, it's not all bad press when discussing gadgetry. the problem might conceivably be marking the difference between a 'tool' and a 'gadget'. the easy answer, i'd suggest, is if it says 'park tool' on the blue handle, it probably is what it says on the tin. but a gadget (very) recently acquired at the croft, was suggested by a reader of the post (thank you mike) following a post in which i described the pain felt by my thumbs while attempting to fit tyres to my campagnolo bora rims. or any other modern-day wheelset, now that you come to mention it. why, i had asked, was it not possible to manufacture tyres and wheels that formed a perfect match?

the thumb hurting aspect revolved around the last few centimetres of sidewall that almost always refuses to slip easily over the wheel rim. sitting too tight to the wheel rim, it becomes all but impossible to slide a tyre lever underneath to finish the job, while the tightness of the bead is likely to dislocate both thumbs in a vain attempt to complete the job. it doesn't help that more often than not, when wrestling with a tyre lever, it's common to nip the inner tube, meaning repetition of the episode when it fails to inflate.

so, when mike chris hagburg emailed to inform of the existence of a gadget/tool that you probably all knew of already (originally the bullseye bead jack, but now sold as the kool-stop tyre jack), my online order was completed a matter of minutes later. aside from the trials and tribulations i and my thumbs had already experienced, i had also just received a new pair of tyres for review, a brand that had proved scarily difficult on receipt of a previous pair from the same source.

kool-stop tyre bead jack

though the fitting of any tyres forms as much a part of the review process as riding on the terrain for which they were designed, i'd really rather that the process prove as straightforward as possible. with a sunny sunday afternoon set aside for the latter process, hopefully completed in time to watch tadej pogacar stand atop the parisien podium, i'm pleased to say that the tyre jack did exactly what it said on the label. though you can perhaps see clearly from the images, one part of the gadget sits over the edge of the wheel, while the hinged lever fits under the edge of the tyre bead. it's then a simple case of levering the last part of the tyre sidewall into place.

it does pay to ensure that the inner tube is all the way inside the tyre. though the tyre jack has no sharp, pointy edges, it's still conceivable that the tube could be nipped as the bead is levered into place.

the last time i attempted to fit this brand of tyre, i broke a tyre lever, cut two fingers and strained my shoulder. the distributor admitted that he had bent a wheel rim trying to fit a pair in the workshop. removing the existing tyres, fitting both new ones, inflating and replacing the wheels took less than half an hour. if you are reading this with throbbing, dislocated thumbs, i can thoroughly recommend kool-stop's tyre jack.

available at all good cycle retailers, with a price tag of around £15

kool stop tyre bead jack

monday 21 september 2020

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................