???
all my road bike tyres are slick??? the tread on other tyres does nothing on a road.
I guess this is yet another example of my naivety and why I donât deserve to be called a cyclist. Here was me assuming tread on a tyre helped with grip like it would on a car. Thatâs what I get for not reading up on things properly 
Elsewhere, one of the punctures I ârepairedâ is already deflating. Cycling is fun but itâs also great at making me feel utterly useless and about 6 inches tall.
bollocks to this. youâd outride us all in a race, plus you have the flashiest bike!
i think the whole tread thing is a very common misconception. only helps with softer / looser surfaces, not with grip on roads. for winter iâd pick something with a bit more puncture protection (because no one wants to be replacing tubes in the cold), but you still want something with decent amounts of grip (which comes from different compounds rather than the tread). iâm really happy with my tyre choices which i just use all year round, i donât bother with summer / winter tyres. no problems in the wet / with mulchy leaves, and barely any visits from the puncture fairy.
did you pinch the new inner when putting it on?
Had a scary moment on a roundabout with gravel tyres on the other day. Wouldnât have happened with slicks (or if Iâd gone round at a more sensible speed)
Even in a car, for best grip on a dry road youâd want slicks.
The job of the grooved tread is to displace water.
Looks like Iâm not using the right words or terminology again. In my head I say âwinter tyreâ and I mean âsomething thatâs more comfortable to ride in the wetâ, which is not what winter tyres actually are. I assume a tread pattern helps with that because it displaces water, like on car tyres. Thatâs what Iâm thinking about when Iâm considering âgripâ here, not general contact with the road surface per se.
nope, tread doesnât provide extra grip on roads unless youâre going well fast, so useless for bikes on roads
Thanks for the advice, Iâll have a think about alternatives.
TBH, that makes me feel even more of a pathetic noob right now - all style, no substance. Allâs good when everythingâs working well, but when something goes wrong on a bike it highlights just how little confidence I have regarding maintenance and how incompetent I am regarding fixing things. I can ride a bike reasonably fast, but thatâs pretty meaningless and I donât feel anything like what a âcyclistâ is in my head. Maybe that doesnât matter, but beyond actually riding I feel more and more stupid and helpless with every passing month.
Itâs possible, it was really difficult to get back on. There is also the possibility I didnât fully check the tyre over after taking it off. I found a gigantic hawthorn that made me go âaha!â which I then removed. Did I check the rest of the tyre afterwards? I canât remember. Possibly not.
Anyway, back to the drawing board. Cycling is supposed to be my stress relief valve for life, not another source of angst 
This is key. It does not matter if you canât change a chain or a puncture, or if youâre unsure of what a winter tyre is. Thatâs what bike shops are for. I never once attempted to fix anything on my bike when I rode (partly laziness, mainly scared of fucking up Campag Chorus, plus campag uses weird tools which I wasnât investing in). Ride your bike, thatâs all a cyclist is. Donât worry about lack of mechanical knowledge or whatever.
*Understand your geographical location is a factor here btw, but the point stands
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This is a big part of why I havenât ridden in a year, massively sympathise with thst feeling
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Yeah, perhaps I do just have to accept the fact Iâm not great at doing these things, not worry about it and let people who can fix things take the strain. I think I do worry about remoteness and feel like I should be able to do more because âI have toâ, but ultimately thatâs silly - there is a tiny LBS here and also keen cyclists who do repairs as well.
At the moment I feel like the more I read about cycling the less I know. So frustrating at times!
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That never changes.
EVERYONE LISTEN TO RICHMOND
@Ella_Megablast itâs obvs great to have a go fixing stuff if you fancy it (and I didnât mean to come across as condescending earlier, apologies if I did) but it is so so nothing about being a âcyclistâ. I look at your rides on Strava and Iâm in awe, so you can shove your âIâm not a real cyclistâ waffle up your bum 
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Youâll get there mate , it can feel slow at times but it will start to feel familiar soon enough. Although you will never stop getting stumped and frustrated either
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donât worry, you didnât come across as condescending. I suspect itâs just another symptom of a life-wide issue I have of allegedly being âbook smartâ but not at all handy and having âno common senseâ (cheers for the ringing endorsement, Dad) and being horribly self conscious about it.
Iâm trying to repair the puncture again. Itâs sheer luck when I get a tyre back on successfully, because I have no tried and tested technique that actually works. I struggle to get the bead to sit nicely in the rim on one side of the tyre, let alone before trying to get the other side in. Does that matter? I donât know. Iâm yet to find a youtube video that actually explains how to fix a puncture in slow, very easy steps telling you what to look out for on the way. Theyâre all just âdo this, do that, oh itâs so fucking easyâ WELL IT ISNâT, ACTUALLY. And the more I struggle the more I get afraid of riding outside because if Iâm struggling with this in the house how on earth am I gonna manage at the roadside in the pissing rain? And why was I so blasĂ© about this before? This is why I run absurdly high tyre pressures, because I dread getting punctures.
(Blushes) Well, the feeling is mutual there because your rides certainly fill me with awe too 
It sounds to me like you possibly have a bad rim / tyre combo. As in, some tyres are really hard to get on and off of some rims. Iâve had this problem before and I had to buy new wheels to solve it
Iâll try and detail every bit of what I do if I need to change a tube:
Remove wheel
Deflate inner as much as I can
Massage the tyre all the way around the wheel - this makes it easier to remove (normally only do one side because lazy)
Directly opposite the valve at the other end of the tyre I pop a tyre lever in and use the spokes to hold it, and then I pop another in a few cms away, and then a third if I have it
Use the tyre lever underneath the bead of the tyre and slide that side of the tyre off of rim
Remove tube, inspect for hole and patch if necessary
Check inside and outside tyre for cause of puncture, remove offending article or use tyre boot if needed
Pump inner tube up only slightly
Pop tube into tyre
Starting at the valve end (v important), pop the bead back into the rim
If your tyres are tight eventually you wonât be able to push the tyre back on, if this happens, massage the tyre all the way around again multiple times where itâs already on the rim, this will give you extra millimetres of space to work with. Sometimes I also deflate the inner so that I have more space to work with
Go back to where youâre trying to pop the tyre on and gently work it in
If youâre struggling, use a tyre lever (warning: might pinch the tube)
Once itâs on, again, massage tyre all the way round checking itâs in the rim properly
Put wheel on bike
INFLATE
Wow I must be bored to write all that out
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Thanks 
this seems to be what Iâm trying to follow, itâs just actually doing it in practice thatâs problematic! A problem I sometimes have when getting the first side of the tyre in is that the bead doesnât pop into the rim part of the way round & sits in the centre of the wheel instead; maybe more massaging is the answer. Another trouble is that my hands/grip are very weak so I find that whole pushing the bead onto the rim physically quite difficult.
Just got it back on, was tight in the end but with a bit of fairy liquid & a tyre lever I got there. Hopefully I havenât pinched the inner. Wasnât seated perfectly but as per Mr Park Tool guy, inflating popped everything into place. Now to eat dinner, go to work and see if itâs still holding the pressure in the morningâŠ
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The one time I tried to change a tyre I struggled for hours trying to get the tyre on until my hands were cramping, took the wheel into Halfords and the guy literally popped it on in about 30 seconds like it was nothing. And thatâs why I donât ride a bike anymore.
itâs sorcery, innit? Iâve barely got any prints left on my thumbs, and theyâre cut and blistered too. The gravel bike better beware, because in the distance I can hear the Union and Crinan canals callingâŠ
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