Bike Tires. Directly?

Sunday, December 4th. April and I were departing the Bike Craft Fair and heading to the Bike. Walk. Vote. event at Crank bicycles. We decided to use the SE Ankeny Bicycle Boulevard to get between the two since it seemed the most obvious route. This route passes by venerable Citybikes, Portland’s long-lived, long-loved worker-owned bicycle shop. There are two locations on Ankeny, the original at SE 19th and the annex at SE 8th. Sometimes there are free bike parts in front of the main shop at 19th, sometimes left by worker-owners, sometimes dropped off by others. I generally scan “the pile” when I pass by. And Sunday night something caught my eye, basically because it’s designed to catch a headlight in a dark environment:

This bike tire. So I hollered at April to stop so I can analyze it. Turns out it’s a Michelin city tire, 700x32C, in perfect shape! Sweet! April needs a new-ish tire for the rear of her Novarra Randonee. While this tire is not as nice as a Schwalbe Marathon, it is also very very serviceable and very very free.

Also in the pile of tires were these two:

A set of gumwall 26″ x 1 3/8″ (650A, 590mm, E.A.3) tires also in great shape! With tubes, even! They’re Kendas so they’re pretty basic tires, but they are free. And they will go quite good on the Rudge project that is up-and-coming. (Yep, that is still a go!)

I may have won the Raving Bike Fiend scoring of free bike stuff award for the night.