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I ordered some Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires for my touring bike, to replace the 3-year old mismatched pair I had on there--one of which is original equipment. (Relating to my last post: Knobbies are great fun, but my September tour will be almost all on roads, and I want to ride on these for a while before a week-long tour.)

Those of you who've changed anything thinner than a mountain bike tire know that they can be tough to get on, at least the first few times. The Marathon Plus is the nuclear option flat resistant touring tires--heavy, but considered reliable and a very good ride. They're also even stiffer and more ornery to get on than any other touring tire I've installed. After some struggling, I got the rear tire on the rim and put it back on the bike. The front tire, a Panasonic, was a little more trouble. (Yeah, it's the newer tire, but newer by just a few weeks; I had a nasty blowout on tour when the bike was fairly new, and had to toss the tire after a day of riding with a boot.)

I had more trouble getting the bead around the rim, and for a moment, wondered if I was digging into the tube; I gently pulled the tire iron out (I usually just use my fingers, but this tire was tight) and tried again. Eventually, with my wife helping, the tube was on and I inflated to 85psi. (The maximum is 95.)

After some other fiddly maintenance, I put the bike against the wall, in preparation for the morning commute on the towpath. A few hours layer, I hear a loud bang! Loud enough to be a balloon popping next to my ears, or maybe a gunshot from fifty yards away. The front tire had exploded, and the bike was standing there with the tire half-off the rim, the tube in shreds. The guitars I have hanging on the walls were ringing, as were my ears.

There are two takeaway lessons here. First off, though you may sometimes have little choice in the matter,. using a tire iron to seat the tire is probably a bad idea. At the least, inflate the tube more! (I'm fairly sure I could have put more air in the tube.) It could have been that the bead wasn't seated properly (I understand that can also cause a tube to blow), but I was careful about that. I massage the tire onto the rim evenly before fully inflating, evening everything out and also checking that the tube isn't caught anywhere. (Obviously I missed something this time. Just look at that picture! That's a classic pinch flat, allright.)

Secondly, replace your tires before three years pass; the tread on those was pretty low, the sidewalls almost gone.

There's good advice in this question about tight tires. I can't believe I forgot the talc trick! I'll try it in the morning when I replace the tube.

Aside from Bicycles.SE, these are the sites related to Bicycle touring I like the most.

• Crazy Guy on a Bike is home to the largest collection of bike touring journals on the planet. Many of them are worth reading, and some of them are excellent. The site started out as simply a place for site owner Neil Gunton's journal, and is now home to nearly 6,000 journals (including twenty of mine). This one about a Florida-to-Washington tour is my current favorite. The forums there are also quite good.
• Biking across the USA by John Dorsey is a sentimental favorite of mine. It's the first tour journal I ever read and it, along with this book, was one of the things planted the idea of touring into my head. I don't know if I'll ever do a tour loger than a week or two, but I found this site inspring. (If only he would finish the last few pages!)
• The Touring Store is my favorite place to buy racks and panniers and other bike luggage. The proprietor is extremely knowledgable about his merchandise, and genuinely wants his customers to be happy with their purchases--and also for them to buy the right stuff in the first place.
• The Touring subforum at BikeForums is also a very good resource. I've found many of the people there to be a good source of information, and sometimes to be very inspiring.
• Warm Showers is a shared hospitality site for bike tourists, similar to Couch Surfing.
• Icebike hasn't been updated in years, but the site still has a lot of great information. I've consulted it when planning winter tours.

Can anyone recommend any other really top-shelf sites that should be here?

Lately, I’ve been commuting to rehearsals on the Delaware and Raritan Canal trail. It’s a great way to get away from traffic and potholes for a good chunk of the eight-mile ride. It’s also cooler, as much of the path is covered by trees. The only problem is that it adds ten minutes to the ride, if not more.

The other only problem is that Hildy, my touring bike, has standard touring tires. She’s reliable and fits me like an old, shirt, the kind that’s getting a little ratty, but is too comfortable to get rid of despite the worn hems on the sleeves. She can handle a little gravel, but she’s fickle. Loose gravel or uneven stone will make her say: “Neil, you might consider getting off and walking—or I’ll toss you on your ass.” Yeah, that wouldn’t be pretty. I walk over those nasty bits of path.

Last week, after riding this bit of towpath every Monday for several weeks, I decided that it was time to put my knobby “winter” tires back on Hildy. While the recent resurfacing of the path made it possible for us to ride it on those 700x32 tires, there are still small sections of gravel where I’ll walk the bike, not to mention spillways. My first ride on the towpath with the knobbies I got for last winter was—there’s no other word for it—fun! And Hildy said barely a word until I got to that thousand-foot overgrown rock spillway. I didn’t even wait for her to tell me, I walked that one. (Along with the last spillway where one has to balance on rocks in the Raritan River to get to the other side.)

A patch of coarse gravel or sand became damn awesome, and these are no longer barely-balancing jaw-clenching moments. There’s something exhilarating about riding over an uneven, ephemeral surface.

Of course, there’s a price for all this. The ride takes about five to ten minutes longer now. (Fifteen, with today’s headwinds.) And there are still stone spillways I can’t ride over, although that’s down to two (from five previously unrideable rock-and-concrete stretches.) Also, the bike doesn’t corner as well on concrete. But that’s okay. I’ve gotten much faster at swapping out tires.

I’ve just ordered parts for my mountain bike build again, and may soon finish my offroad project of the last three years. Imagine the fun I could have with proper two-inch knobby tires on that 1994 Stumpjumper frame! No dirt or rock would be unclimbable. Those helmet-cam mountain-maniacs I see on Youtube may be insane, but I can’t argue that they’re not having a good time.

Whoops! Sorry, Hildy. You’re still my favorite, I promise. Maybe it’s time we did an offroad tour.