I’ve decided that sewups are not for me. There are a few bikie things I haven't experienced, the three that come to mind are sewups, rollers, and fixed gears (if you don't count riding Harry's around in the Bedford library parking lot).
Dedicated sewup users describe them with a fervor bordering on a religion. So I've been lusting after them for many years. The first impediment of course is the cost. Sewups can cost as much as car tires, and I was surprised to hear that people don't actually sew them up any more, when they go pssst, you throw them out. Now I hear some grumbling from the old school in the background, if you were a real man, you'd sew them up when they go flat. This for me is another impediment. Now I'm a liberated sort of guy, not averse to sewing, but I'm much too lazy to do any sewing by hand. If you can't use a machine, it don't get sewed. I think it would be a bit dodgy trying to repair my Vittorias with the old Singer. So sewing up is out, and a flat means big bucks. The aficionados assure me that you actually get fewer flats with sewups, since they are not prone to pinch flats. So, considering that and the fact that the Donohue purse strings have been loosening up a bit in my old age, the possibility of sewups is not entirely ruled out on cost alone.
The clincher (no pun intended) to the sewup story is what happens when you do get a flat. As I understand it, you have to get out your spare sewup, and your spare glue and smear glue all over the rim so that it will stay on. This is a difficult enough proposition in the comfort of your own house, but trying to do it on the road in the pouring rain would be another thing altogether. I am reminded of the tube patching glue I have been wont to carry around for years that when the time comes to actually use it, the solvent has long since evaporated, and if there is in fact any remaining glue it has the consistency of used chewing gum. I suspect that sewup glue would fare equally poorly. In the unlikely event that I do manage to apply said glue and coerce the tire onto the rim, then we have to worry about whether the glue is applied properly or not. I gather this process is also somewhat of an art, and if you blow it, your fine sewup tire rolls off the rim, usually at high speed, with dire consequences.
So to recap, I can go to great additional expense and aggravation, add new ways to achieve painful FDGBs, for benefits that might not even be all that evident to me (we're not talking the princess and the pea, here). I think I'll pass.
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