Morning Commute – 2021.07.14

This morning’s commute is brought to you in part by the fine folks over at Swanny’s Cycles. Swanny’s Cycles the local bike shop for all your cycling needs.

After car pooling with the wife yesterday and dropping her off at her after work nails appointment, I swung by Swanny’s to check into some new tires for Shadow. I stop in there pretty frequently and chat with Joseph and Zubi about a little bit of everything and I knew they had both styles of Continentals I was looking at. After chewing Zubi’s ear off for a good 45 minutes, going back and forth between GP5000s and the Gatorskins and sharing the exploded tire porn, I decided to go with the Gatorskins in 32 along with replacement tubes. Went home and, after dinner, got them mounted up and ready to roll for today.

Here’s the clutch part. Once I decided on the 32s, Zubi let me in on the bad news that the only had one in stock. Knowing the next couple weeks are going to be light on the commutes anyway, I was ok with him just ordering in a pair and waiting. Instead, he mentioned needing a 32 to Joseph and he replied with, “Yeah sure do it.” Zubi goes in back and comes out with a pair of damn near brand new 32s. He goes on to explain how another customer bought a bike, purchased these tires, logged a couple rides, and came back wanting to swap them out for something else. Of course they can’t stuff these back into a box and sell them as new so they’ve been sitting around the shop. I reply, “Sweet what do I owe ya?”.

Zubi replies, “You know what try them out and if you like them we’ll order you a new pair.” My jaw about hit the floor. This dude is letting me walk out with a nearly new pair of $120 tires to try for a few weeks? If there were any doubts in my mind about Swanny’s being my LBS they were vanquished with this act of customer service. They’ll be the only place working on my bike, outside of me, going forward and I’m sending everyone I know their direction.

Now back to what everyone wants to hear about, the tires! Initial impressions are they ride very similar to the Bontrager R2 Hard-Case Lite tires they replace. I’m pretty mellow with riding and I’m still building confidence on technical handling so I’m sure I didn’t take there anywhere near their limit. Also this was only a morning commute ride so not much in the way of crazy cornering and maneuvering going on. The ride was nice and smooth and I’m pretty happy with them.

Mostly sunny-Mostly sunny, 84°F-83°F, Feels like 86°F-84°F, Humidity 52%-48%, Wind ENE 3mph-E 6mph – by Klimat.app