Into the Taklamakan Desert, I pressed on with a rapidly wearing front tire and no spare to replace it if the tire failed. Doubt filled my mind as I waded deeper and deeper into the endless sea of sand. There were no services until we reached the southern fringe of the desert, some 500 kilometers away.
I had little choice: continue the journey or find a willing driver and vehicle to ferry me to the other side of the Taklamakan. With each passing day on the desolate Tirum Desert Highway, my anxiety rose higher and higher. I pressed on.
Go for Broke
Two-thirds of the way across the Taklamakan, my riding partner Wei Lei and I decided to make one long push into Minfeng, 175 kilometers south of us. We woke the following morning to howling wind and blowing sand.
We’d spent the previous day cycling under the scorching sun that sent the mercury to 42℃ that heated the cracked and rough pavement to a point where it ground away at the softening rubber on the tire at an alarming pace. With sections of tread worn smooth, green patches of the tire’s puncture guard grew and grew with each passing kilometer. The scant rubber remaining between the asphalt and the inner tube became thinner and thinner.
I could’ve kicked myself for not bringing a spare, as I always do. Once again, I had violated one of my own rules: Always have a backup. Had I brought a spare, this wouldn’t have been an issue. I would have swapped it with a fresh tire and road on. I would have changed the tire at the first signs of abnormal wear, so the tire could still function as a spare in the event of another failure. No big deal.
Time to Improvise
Reducing the rate of wear and protecting the inner tube became my major focus. To protect the inner tube, I placed a tire boot inside the tire under the first green spot and backed it up with a section cut from an old inner tube to increase the rubber thickness at the point of wear.
Additionally, I carried a section of rubber tire liner from a truck tire I’d picked up off the road. Plus, I still had two more tire boots. My plan was to hold off placing anymore on the tire and save them to deal with any weak spots that threatened to cause the tire to fail.
As long as the tire kept its integrity and didn’t disintegrate or a spot became so thin as to pop the inner tube, it should hold. I checked the tire every five or ten kilometers for any troubled spots. If a section of the tire threatened to fail, I would back it up with a boot and section of inner tube and or rubber tire liner then. As I pedaled on, I continually scanned the road ahead for other scraps of rubber that had been thrown free from truck tires that I could use to shore up my failing front tire.
First Signs of Trouble
I’d first noticed the oddly wearing tire a couple of weeks before while climbing into the Altai Mountains in the northern reaches of Xinjiang Province. Several sections of center tread had faded away becoming smooth flat spots. The tread wear didn’t look too serious. I felt I had enough tread to cover the remaining thousand or so kilometers of the journey back through the Tian Shan and across the Taklamakan Desert to Kashir on the eastern Chinese border near Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I pressed on, checking the defective tire throughout each day.
The first day in the Taklamakan, the bright green puncture protection strip in the core of the tire began to appear on the flat spots. The green strip first appeared as a single spot and then grew into to several long strips.
As shown in the above video, the tire became more and more crooked with each day the bike was ridden, which caused a side to side grating motion on the tread wearing away the tread, especially when making highspeed descents in the Altai and Tian Shan mountains. Over time, the side to side oscillating action created several smooth flat spots at several points around the tire exposing the puncture guard within the tire’s core.
Locating a 29-inch replacement in Xinjiang would be practically impossible. Tires on mountain bikes in China are virtually all 27.5” or 650B, with an occasional 26” wheeled bike. It’s quite rare to see any 29” tires in China. Finding a replacement would be out of the question. My only options were to limp the bike on into Kashir or terminate the ride and seek alternate transport. I’d come too far to quit now. I was going for broke. I was going to cross the Taklamakan or “Desert of Death” on the ailing front tire.
A Defective Tire from the Start
The tire looked a little weird when I installed it prior to going to New Zealand. There was a slight slide to side oscillation in the tread when turning. I wrote it off as a slight manufacturing defect and rode on.
I kept an eye on it, and after riding over 4,000 kilometers of riding in New Zealand, the tire showed no abnormal signs of wear, other than a slight side to side oscillation that didn’t affect the bikes ride at all.
Prior to beginning the ride through Xinjiang, the tire still had plenty of tread remaining. The wear didn’t look any more than the rear tire which seemed fine. In fact, I thought the tire had enough tread, I decided to save a little extra weight and go on the journey without a spare, which would prove to be a bonehead move. It was the first time I had traveled without one, something I won’t repeat on any future long rides.
The Tire Holds
In the end, not only did the tire hold up to Kashir, I still rode the bike around town for several days before we flew back to Shanghai.
Though I’ve since switched back to my proven Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tires because I had a new set, plus a spare, I’m convinced I’d just gotten a hold of a defective tire. The Almotion tires are good tires and won’t rule out rolling on them again someday. But for now, it’s the Mondial’s for me. Cheers.
