Today I did another bike tour, following several I’ve taken recently. I didn’t blog about those, although they were quite nice and I truly enjoyed them, now more appropriately dressed.¹

Over the weekend, I did some more modifications and enhancements to my bike. I finally mounted some compatible mudguards after I initially bought some incompatible ones when I bought my bike. To find them, I used some official list from Cube listing all compatible models with each bike. However, the new mudguards require slimmer tires. So I also replaced the 42-622 Schwalbe G-One Allround with some slimmer 35-622 Continental Terra Trail. It was also the first time I changed tires on my own, but after watching some tutorials and trying a bit, I managed to do it with no problems. 😌

What caused more issues was the rear fender. As I also use a rear luggage rack, I had to drill some holes into the fender to mount it correctly with the screws. Yes, I did it as shown in the manual. I managed to do it, but eventually the fender ended up being a bit crooked. As I already spent a few hours in the whole process, I decided to just fix it with some black cable ties. You need to look really close to notice it. 😅 I will fix it in a better way some other time.

Back to today’s tour. The new tires and especially the new fenders proved to be really useful. It has been rainy lately, and for the last few kilometers of my tour today it rained again, so the ground, especially in the forest, was muddy. But I stayed clean and didn’t slip anywhere with the better grip from the tires. Maybe it’s just imagination, but I also had the feeling that I was able to ride a bit faster today, as the slimmer tires have better aerodynamics.

It will be freezing over the next few days, mostly below 0 °C, so I guess I won’t be able to go on another tour.

And in December I will start a new job. So perhaps it was one of the last rides this year today…