Tire Woes

In the last week of March I purchased a pair of Vredestein Fortezza TriComp race tires for my bike. I read several reviews of them, some good and some bad, and decided to give them a try. Having spent $90 for the pair, I was hoping for the best.

Well, sure enough, problems have arisen.

Yesterday while warming up before the big Sunday group ride, I noticed a pronounced hump in my front tire. If it hadn't been clearly visible over the handlebars, I'm sure I would have noticed it by the audible thump thump thump and the sudden rough ride I was experiencing.

My front tire has developed a pretty significant bulge, and the tire is shot. Granted I run them at 135 psi, but their advertised maximum pressure is 175---the tire seriously looks like I tried to cram 300 psi into it.

This is after just over three months of use, mind you. Sure, I ride a lot of miles, but there's no excuse for a $45 tire to bulge after just 2000 miles. My similarly-priced Bontrager Race X Lite tires that came with the Race Lite wheels I train on already have more than 3000 miles on them and they're still in great shape.

Looks like I'll be going back to those. I wonder if the bike shop will replace the Vredesteins, but I doubt it.

In the future I'll take the negative reviews at RoadBikeReview.com much more seriously.