...and one mounted "backwards"...for you purists.

I went through the tire savers phase years ago. When the tire choices were 70psi gum walls or sew ups. As a young buck I went to sew ups soon as I could afford to. being a shop rat i was privy to the inside way to do things (...) and learned of tire savers soon. I rode a couple or three seasons with them both on the sew up bikes ans well as the clincher ones.

What i have not yet read from any one else is the performance in the wet. And I don't mean the flick ability of bits and the greater protection from flats (when the chances are the greatest). What i take issue with is the ability for the tire saver to break the bead of water that runs along the tire's crest. Resulting in a shower arcing above, behind and below the tire saver. So the usual locations of under the brake center bolt nuts means that your legs, front and back, get quite a soaking. Not so bad when it's raining (after all you'll get wet anyway) but when the roads are still wet you will be too. Then if you adjust the tire saver to just ride above the tire's crest (and this is a moving target given tires' shape tolerances) you loose the flick ability.

So my next location for mounting grazers was for the rear on the chain stay bridge. A bit more a hassle to get at but as effective as the brake mount. Only now the water lubed my chain with all the grit that a wet road offered up. On my fendered bikes I tried mounting on the ends of the fenders. Better for the spray patterns and keeping dryer. But with the fenders movements the tire savers would get pushed off the tire and I'd be resetting them all the time.

Even with grazers I got a few flats but I do admit that it's impossible to say whether the rate of flats would have been greater without grazers. I make the point about current flat protection (Kevlar belted tires being the one that my shop sells) that the rider will not know if they didn't get the flat... Kind of like those Weapons of Mass Destruction that we never found... So I went back to the time tested way of flicking off bits, your hands. To this day i still brush my tires by hand frequently. The claim of getting skin cuts has not been my experience after many tens of thousands of miles. Andy.

Thanks FB. After reading your description, I remember those well.

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/tire-wipers/

I wasn't implying that ozone doesn't destroy tires, I was try to saying that ozone has less of an effect on better quality tires then Walmart type of tires.

Anyway; I never found thorn resistant (no tube is thorn proof), tube to be of any value, and they add quite of bit of rotational weight, so the combination of weight and little in added protection adds up to be a huge negative. Just my opinion.

Odd you feel that way. After getting goathead thorn flats like 4x a week, changing to A thick tube cut it down to maybe 1 in 8 months. Not like it's fool proof, but measurable. This was for both a road bike and larger mtb tires.

I found liners to be ineffective also. And hate the mess of Slime sealants.

No it's not odd at all when you consider they didn't work for me and others I knew that lived where I did at the time. The only thing I ever found that worked 100% against the goathead in the late 90's and early 2000's was the Specialized Armadillo All Condition tire. No combination of another tire, liner, thick or slime tube worked 100%, the second best result I got was combining a Conti Gatorskin with a Mr Tuffy and thorn tube and that worked about 66% better but still got flats at the rate of 2 to 3 a week.

Of course it's possible since then that there are newer things on the market that may now work, but not back then, like the Panaracer Flat Away liner wasn't out back then. I believe that the Panaracer Flat Away liner is far superior to the Mr Tuffy and the likes, and I'm quite confident a person could get a decent kevlar tire around the 220 gram range, install a 35 gram Flat Away liner, and a 65 gram ultralight tube for a total of 320 grams and be just as impervious to flats as a using a Specialized Armadillo All condition at 425 grams and a light 65 gram tube but be lighter by about 170 grams per wheel.

I told my tale as 1 bit of evidence. I don't claim that everyone will
have the same experience. The makers of sealant sell lots of sealant:
perhaps it works for some.

That cross-country trip on which I didn't have a flat until Oregon
(starting in LA), and a flat that happened from tire wear, not a
puncture, which good experience I attributed to Mr Tuffy tire-liners?
I just remembered stopping at a bike shop in Boise: it had a
tire-liner studded with goat-heads hanging behind the counter to
witness their ineffectiveness.

That I find goat-head thorns embedded in my tires (head gone) which haven't punctured the tube would seem to witness that liners work. It would also make sense that liners work together with tire-savers by keeping them from puncturing the tube for more rotations, giving the tire-saver longer to scrape them off.

wonder how much noise they make

Couple years ago I bought several Nashbar Slick City tires (559x1.25) for about 9 bucks apiece, aged them a year or so and installed one on the back of my LWB recumbent after installing a liner. I get about 2500 miles out of them with no flats Probably could run them further, but I don't like to push them, and at the price....... We don't have the thorns here, but lots of glass.

After May 19 I traveled another 1,600 miles without a puncture, then another 540 before a third puncture, but I have had 25 punctures in the last 2,250 miles.

I've tried 2 new kinds of liners (Mr Tuffys and RhinoDillos), doubling them up. Goathead thorns (tire-savers scrape off the heads) work their way through despite all this. Sometimes I find them embedded in the liners, sometimes in the tire only; they still puncture the tube. They're slow leaks that I usually don't discover until the next day. I've used new tubes and new tires.

I fear I roused the god of bicycling who sent Nemesis to puncture my tires in punishment for bragging.

For extra fun I rode over something in a flood basin that slashed my rear tire more than an inch; the tube exploded. Fortunately I carry a boot.

I use to live in the Mojave Desert area of Calif I know all about goatheads and thorns, and the only defense I ever found that worked was the Specialized Armadillo All Condition tire. Yes the tire is heavy and they ride like bricks but if you want the best protection you have to change the tires. The one thing about Armadillo tires I did find out after a few months of riding on them is you can soften the ride a tad by lowering the pressure 10 psi less then you would normally use (assuming you are using this calculator to get your psi see: https://www.dorkypantsr.us/bike-tire-...alculator.html use the middle calculator and enter your total ready to ride body and bike weight then deduct 10 psi for the Armadillos). Since I've used Armadillos Specialized has reduced the weight of those tires by about 100 grams, now their 395 grms for the 700x25c tires, not sure if the ride quality improved or not. This tire has a virtually indestructible sidewall, the only flat I got in 15,000 miles (not same tire of course) was after the cords were showing but for a test I rode it flat for 1 miles, slowly of course, and the tube never pinched nor did the tire come off the rim thus the rim was never even slightly damaged. These tires will last about 6,000 thousand miles depending on rider weight and coarseness of the asphalt used in your area.

Also if you want added insurance you can add a Panaracer FlatAway liner, this is the best liner on the market and it weighs about 66% less (32grms) than a Mr Tuffy while working a lot better. I never used a liner with the Armadillos, but if you're paranoid about the flats then I would consider the rear tire only since the front gets less flats anyways and it's easier to repair a front flat.

More also's. You can easily get away with using an ultralight tube in the Armadillo's, I used Specialized Turbo 65grm tubes and still never had a flat. Using an ultralight tube will help keep the weight down.

Another also. These tires can be a pain to put on, or least they use to be, you may want to buy a tire lever called the VAR, see: https://www.cyclebasket.com/products....3s281p92&rs=gb Very difficult to find in the states, not sure why. After you got the tire on as far as you can by hand you place the VAR over the top of the tire and place the V section on the edge of the rim and the hook side of the VAR on the tire bead then simply pull back on the VAR and the tire snaps into place without any fear of snagging the tube. You could probably find a You Tube video on how to use it if need be.