Never too old to learn

The Curse is fond of saying 'every day's a schoolday' and I have to agree with him - sometimes, however, I find myself re-learning lessons that I thought I'd learned ages ago!

Today was a good example. I'm generally the sort of person who doesn't mind spending a little bit more money to get something that will last longer, be more durable or do the job better. For some reason, though, I seem to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to bicycle tyres. And this is a really silly attitude to have when you cycle 13 miles every day!

Last time I went to buy some new tyres I got a bit annoyed by the shop assistant trying to flog me the ones that were £25 each and almost in spite, insisted on buying the cheap ones that were only £9.99 each. I wouldn't even consider buying the £20 ones, so narked was I!

Decision-making fail!

Since that day I've been paying for my miserliness in spades, and also in inner tubes. Although I saved about £10 on each tyre, I've suffered several punctures because of the thinness of the tyres; inner tubes cost £5 each and I've been getting through them with ridiculous speed. Not to mention the aggravation of having to change an inner tube in the rain in Tesco's car park on the way to work. And I compounded the miserliness by not just throwing away the tyres and buying new ones - I don't like throwing stuff away until it is finished, and even though they were only £10 each I wanted to get the wear out of them before I changed them for new.

Another decision-making fail!

About 4 miles into this morning's journey to work I went over a piece of glass and suffered a pretty dramatic puncture in the back wheel. When I got the tyre off I found that the glass had not only shredded the inner tube, it had cut a big hole in the tyre. I put on a new inner tube and rode the rest of the way, but the tyre was knackered and just round the corner from the office, the brand new inner tube which had only done about 2 miles, also met its end. Bah.

Luckily the local bike shop had tyres and inner tubes in stock in the right size. I went right out and bought a new, quality tyre which hopefully will give me plenty of trouble-free miles. No more cheap tyres for me!