What is the point of tubeless tires?

On 1/13/2019 7:43 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
I've tried clipless pedals but had problems getting out of them at times and then falling over and getting scraped up a bit. Therefore I went back to toeclips. For most of my riding I don't even have to snug up the straps let alone tighten them up yet my feet stay on the pedals. Besides, toestraps have LOTS of other uses. I've used one to keep a dressing on a cut on a leg. I've used them to secure a jacket and tights to the underside of my saddle after the temperatures rose to from quite chilly to quite warm. I've used a toestrap to secure an extra water bottle under a saddle. I've looped a toestrap around my handlebar and stem and used it as makeshift bottle holder to hold a cup of coffee. I used 2 toestraps joined together to hold something to the rear rack on a bicycle. Hard to do any of that if you have clipless pedals. LOL VBEG ;)

Sure, I've used toestraps for under-saddle stowage also, or to tie a
spare folding tire to a seat tube, and I have a collection of good ones.
Sometimes I use one just to flout my old-guy wisdom/experience.

But I don't use 'em for my pedals anymore.

Also, I've found that velcro straps work better for all but heavy-duty
stowage:
https://kgear.eogear.com/collections...m-d-ring-strap

Mark J.

On 1/14/2019 9:28 AM, wrote:
On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 12:22:03 PM UTC+1, Duane wrote:
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, January 13, 2019 at 9:57:50 PM UTC-5, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/13/2019 4:35 AM, Tosspot wrote:
On 1/12/19 6:46 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/12/2019 12:11 AM, wrote:
Seriously, what is the point of these things? What problem do they
solve and is it worth the extra maintenance hassles for non-racing
riders?

Part of the point is "churning." Bikes and bike parts are a
super-mature industry, and bikes and their products last decades. (My
favorite bike is from 1986.) So the industry tries to come up with new
ideas every year, just to entice you to buy _something_.

Going back to the 1970s, it was "Ten speeds!" then "Touring bikes!"
then "Aluminum!" then "Mountain bikes!" ... and on and on, with front
suspension, full suspension, 6 speeds, 7 speeds, 8 & 9 & 10 & 11
speeds, carbon fiber, electronic shifting etc. It goes on forever.

Currently it's disc brakes, tubeless tires and "gravel bikes." For
almost everyone who rides a bicycle, the improvements (if any) are
almost undetectable. We are deeply into diminishing returns, no matter
what miracles the supposed connoisseurs claim.

I take issue.Â* Indexed ergo shifters vs downtube friction shifters, LED
LiPo lights vs dodgy glow worms, and this is going to cause trouble,
yes, hydraulic discs vs cable rim brakes.


I think Tosspot has nailed it here, though Frank's not wrong either, in
large part.

Yes, those of us who have watched cycling's new products for a while
(~40 years for me) know that there's a lot of useless junk that shows
up. There are also some great improvements, and some wonders. While we
will disagree about some (many) of them, let's admit that available
products today include a lot of great innovations.

But here's the thing - at first it was hard to tell which area of
"improvement" would really work. I think most of the categories of
improvements we enjoy today had early failures - hilariously so in some
cases, and they were surrounded by other "categorical failures", ideas
that really turned out to be entirely useless.

Here's a partial list (according to me) of big improvements I've seen
that weren't obvious in their first appearance:

Low-cost aluminum... cranks, derailleurs, etc.
I worked episodically in a Raleigh shop in the later 70's, assembling
new bikes. Right about then Raleigh shifted from lots of steel (or
plastic) Nervar, Simplex, Huret stuff to aluminum Sugino, SunTour, and
SR stuff. The latter was vastly easier to set up well. But there was
junk (plenty of it?) in the cheap aluminum component category. I
remember a cottered aluminum crank (!). In the earlier 70s, I doubt we
would have thought that low-cost aluminum parts could ever be good.

Quality clincher tires (first decent ones, then great ones).
When I started riding, no clincher came close to the quality, rolling
resistance, weight of sewups, pain-in-the-ass though they are. Then SBI
(Specialized Bicycle Imports, later shortened), IRC, and then Michelin
started selling very nice clinchers, and Schwinn's outsourced "LeTour"
tires were good too. Today I can get "handmade" non-vulcanized tires by
Challenge, Veloflex, or major brands like Vittoria that come pretty
close to duplicating sewup feel, rolling resistance, and (almost)
weight. Or I can get midweight vulcanized tires that are only slightly
heavier.
But some of the earlier attempts at "clincher reform" were, IIRC, pretty
crappy. One could easily have thought that "quality clincher" was a
pipe dream that would never take root.

Clipless pedals
This one is huge for me. When I had toestraps tightened enough to work
- and I kept 'em pretty loose - I still had killer problems with cold
feet in winter. With clipless, I have lots of room for shoe covers,
etc., not to mention other advantages. I know we don't all agree, but
the overwhelming adoption of clipless can't /just/ be marketing.
BUT OMG were there a bunch of poor, crappy, and even
disastrous/dangerous clipless designs early on. Sampson comes to mind,
or especially the Cinelli M71 pedal. I've forgotten the names of most
of the others, but they certainly gave the impression that clipless
pedals were crazy.

Indexed shifting
Again, we don't all agree, but the overwhelming majority of cyclists
seem to think that index shifting is a pretty neat idea. Despite some
real turkeys early on (Positron and Positron II, anyone?), turkeys that
"clearly" signaled that index shifting was an answer to a question
nobody asked, it turns out you *can* make a quality indexed shifter.
Who knew?

I could go on. Brifters, LED/LiPo lights, aluminum and carbon frames,
bicycle computers, nylon saddles (that's reaching back many years), and
yes, disc brakes, etc. - and all those advances coming on the scene with
many poor early designs, and surrounded by junk we still laugh about
that never amounted to anything. But if we could tell which inventions
would blossom when we first saw them, we'd all have invested in Intel
and Microsoft in the 70's and be rich now.

So even though I agree with Frank about "churn" in large part, that
churn turns out a few not-immediately-recognizable innovations that most
of us are glad about. A sort of Darwinian evolution, if you will.
While the industry may be super-mature, it ain't done yet.

Mark J.

I can remember when BIYCLING magazine had an article about NOT needing 15
gears on a bicycle. They stated in their article that 10 gears was more than enough.

I've tried clipless pedals but had problems getting out of them at times
and then falling over and getting scraped up a bit. Therefore I went back
to toeclips. For most of my riding I don't even have to snug up the
straps let alone tighten them up yet my feet stay on the pedals.
Besides, toestraps have LOTS of other uses. I've used one to keep a
dressing on a cut on a leg. I've used them to secure a jacket and tights
to the underside of my saddle after the temperatures rose to from quite
chilly to quite warm. I've used a toestrap to secure an extra water
bottle under a saddle. I've looped a toestrap around my handlebar and
stem and used it as makeshift bottle holder to hold a cup of coffee. I
used 2 toestraps joined together to hold something to the rear rack on a
bicycle. Hard to do any of that if you have clipless pedals. LOL VBEG ;)

I can remember too when downtube shifters sometimes would wear, or at
least the innards would, to the point where it was nearly impossible to
keep in the gear one wanted.

I think pneumatic clincher tires with separate tubes, decent derailleurs
and decent index shifting are 3 of the major innovations that caused
bicycling to grow as much as it has in North America.

I like my Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters on my touring bike. The left
shifter is ratchet and thus it's dead simple to trim the front
derailleur. I find I shift more often on hills with a load with the Ergos
t han I did even with bar-end shifters. However, I still like my downtube
shifters that i have on some of my other bikes. I especially like my
top-center mounted Dura Ace AX shifters and my top-center downtube
mounted Suntour symetric shifters (?) because they can be shifted front
and rear with just one hand at the same time.

In winter I really like my Lyotard MB23 platform pedals*. They're Frank's favourite pedals.

For me and for many others even 7 gears in t he rear with 2 or 3
chainrings is plenty. I like Shimano 9-speed clusters because I can set
them up with 7 cogs for most riding but with 2 larger cogs for bailout
gears. I use a Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters and rear derailler to shift my
9-speed Shimano cassette on my touring bike.

Some folks who are really into fitness riding or fast-paced group riding
probably love more gears because the increases in effort between gears
isn't as great as it is in 7, 6, or 5 speed cassettes.

Again a lot of bicycle innovations are different horses for different courses.

At least now we have a lot of equipment choices that can be used to give
us the customized bike we WANT or NEED for OUR style of riding.


That last sentence says it all.



--
duane

Something the 'dinosaurs' will never understand and claim everone is a victim of marketing.

Of course, there are innovations and improvements. And of course, any
given improvement will matter to some people more than others. But I
think it's naive to pretend that all (or even most) changes are
significant improvements, or to pretend that marketing isn't a big part
of what drives purchases.

I also think it's naive to attach the label "dinosaur" to people who
realize all this. Do you mock people who don't have tattoos?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/14/2019 1:43 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 1/13/19 11:21 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

But I know I'm an oddball retrogrouch.

Lol. You could use that as a posting name :-)

But boy, when they start selling carbon fiber inner wires for shifters,
I'm jumping on those. And carbon fiber safety pins for keeping my pants
cuffs out of the chain. Think of the weight savings!Â*Â* ;-)

See, there you go, I use velcro straps now because they are more
comfortable, and don't distort wrt to the traditional mild steel ones,
nobody foisted that on me, I can buy the old ones if I want, the velcro
ones are better.

Do you have a link for the CF ones...?

If I could find carbon fibre safety pins to keep your trouser cuffs out of
your chain, I'd buy them and send them to Frank, just to read the ensuing
rant. :-)

Oh no, I'd love them! I can't wait!

When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I jokingly suggested some
safety pins made of hollow titanium wire, for the weight savings.

But then it occurred to me, I really would like some brass ones. The
steel ones rust after a while. So I mentioned those.

I didn't get any. :-(


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/14/19 7:43 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 1/13/19 11:21 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

But I know I'm an oddball retrogrouch.

Lol. You could use that as a posting name :-)

But boy, when they start selling carbon fiber inner wires for
shifters, I'm jumping on those. And carbon fiber safety pins for
keeping my pants cuffs out of the chain. Think of the weight
savings! ;-)

See, there you go, I use velcro straps now because they are more
comfortable, and don't distort wrt to the traditional mild steel
ones, nobody foisted that on me, I can buy the old ones if I want,
the velcro ones are better.

Do you have a link for the CF ones...?

If I could find carbon fibre safety pins to keep your trouser cuffs
out of your chain, I'd buy them and send them to Frank, just to read
the ensuing rant. :-)


Honestly, he isn't actually wrong. They will appear in the not to
distance future :-(

On 1/11/2019 9:11 PM, wrote:
Seriously, what is the point of these things? What problem do they solve and is it worth the extra maintenance hassles for non-racing riders?

There is no point.

Except for racers who benefit from the slightly reduced weight of not
having a tube.

If you're not a racer then avoid them at all costs.

On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 1:02:01 PM UTC-8, sms wrote:
On 1/11/2019 9:11 PM, wrote:
Seriously, what is the point of these things? What problem do they solve and is it worth the extra maintenance hassles for non-racing riders?

There is no point.

Except for racers who benefit from the slightly reduced weight of not
having a tube.

If you're not a racer then avoid them at all costs.

Well, if I'm reading the reviews correctly (and notwithstanding Joerg's experience), they do offer excellent flat resistance with appropriate sealant. TK seems to be the only person who has used them, AFAIK, and the rest of us are just re-posting reviews. I think this one sums it up, and its from a reputable source: https://www.bicyclerollingresistance...eless-clincher I think for racing, I'd go with a latex tube or sew-ups, but for a winter commuter, tubeless with sealant might be a great way to go -- although I'm in no hurry to change. I don't get that many flats -- usually.

And for TK, I don't think the Michelin ProRace are tubeless ready. At least they are not marketed as such. Only the Power Gravel is marketed as tubeless ready. See also https://roadbikeaction.com/michelin-...-power-tires/:

"Odd notes: unfortunately the tires are not tubeless ready. Odd, especially since Michelin pioneered tubeless tech in the mountain bike side of things.. When pressed for the reason why, we were told that although they have “a solution�, they “are just waiting for market demand to grow.� Although they spoke of increased performance with their latex tubes, Michelin does not import the inner tubes in America."

-- Jay Beattie.

On 1/14/2019 12:53 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/14/2019 1:43 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 1/13/19 11:21 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

But I know I'm an oddball retrogrouch.

Lol. You could use that as a posting name :-)

But boy, when they start selling carbon fiber inner
wires for shifters,
I'm jumping on those. And carbon fiber safety pins for
keeping my pants
cuffs out of the chain. Think of the weight savings! Â
;-)

See, there you go, I use velcro straps now because they
are more
comfortable, and don't distort wrt to the traditional
mild steel ones,
nobody foisted that on me, I can buy the old ones if I
want, the velcro
ones are better.

Do you have a link for the CF ones...?

If I could find carbon fibre safety pins to keep your
trouser cuffs out of
your chain, I'd buy them and send them to Frank, just to
read the ensuing
rant. :-)

Oh no, I'd love them! I can't wait!

When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I jokingly
suggested some safety pins made of hollow titanium wire, for
the weight savings.

But then it occurred to me, I really would like some brass
ones. The steel ones rust after a while. So I mentioned those.

I didn't get any. :-(



The Ancients had them and they may be found yet:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-LARGE-B... r:rk:12:pf:0

There are other styles on ebay right now.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 06:28:18 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 12:22:03 PM UTC+1, Duane wrote:
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, January 13, 2019 at 9:57:50 PM UTC-5, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/13/2019 4:35 AM, Tosspot wrote:
On 1/12/19 6:46 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/12/2019 12:11 AM, wrote:
Seriously, what is the point of these things? What problem do they
solve and is it worth the extra maintenance hassles for non-racing
riders?

Part of the point is "churning." Bikes and bike parts are a
super-mature industry, and bikes and their products last decades. (My
favorite bike is from 1986.) So the industry tries to come up with new
ideas every year, just to entice you to buy _something_.

Going back to the 1970s, it was "Ten speeds!" then "Touring bikes!"
then "Aluminum!" then "Mountain bikes!" ... and on and on, with front
suspension, full suspension, 6 speeds, 7 speeds, 8 & 9 & 10 & 11
speeds, carbon fiber, electronic shifting etc. It goes on forever.

Currently it's disc brakes, tubeless tires and "gravel bikes." For
almost everyone who rides a bicycle, the improvements (if any) are
almost undetectable. We are deeply into diminishing returns, no matter
what miracles the supposed connoisseurs claim.

I take issue.* Indexed ergo shifters vs downtube friction shifters, LED
LiPo lights vs dodgy glow worms, and this is going to cause trouble,
yes, hydraulic discs vs cable rim brakes.


I think Tosspot has nailed it here, though Frank's not wrong either, in
large part.

Yes, those of us who have watched cycling's new products for a while
(~40 years for me) know that there's a lot of useless junk that shows
up. There are also some great improvements, and some wonders. While we
will disagree about some (many) of them, let's admit that available
products today include a lot of great innovations.

But here's the thing - at first it was hard to tell which area of
"improvement" would really work. I think most of the categories of
improvements we enjoy today had early failures - hilariously so in some
cases, and they were surrounded by other "categorical failures", ideas
that really turned out to be entirely useless.

Here's a partial list (according to me) of big improvements I've seen
that weren't obvious in their first appearance:

Low-cost aluminum... cranks, derailleurs, etc.
I worked episodically in a Raleigh shop in the later 70's, assembling
new bikes. Right about then Raleigh shifted from lots of steel (or
plastic) Nervar, Simplex, Huret stuff to aluminum Sugino, SunTour, and
SR stuff. The latter was vastly easier to set up well. But there was
junk (plenty of it?) in the cheap aluminum component category. I
remember a cottered aluminum crank (!). In the earlier 70s, I doubt we
would have thought that low-cost aluminum parts could ever be good.

Quality clincher tires (first decent ones, then great ones).
When I started riding, no clincher came close to the quality, rolling
resistance, weight of sewups, pain-in-the-ass though they are. Then SBI
(Specialized Bicycle Imports, later shortened), IRC, and then Michelin
started selling very nice clinchers, and Schwinn's outsourced "LeTour"
tires were good too. Today I can get "handmade" non-vulcanized tires by
Challenge, Veloflex, or major brands like Vittoria that come pretty
close to duplicating sewup feel, rolling resistance, and (almost)
weight. Or I can get midweight vulcanized tires that are only slightly
heavier.
But some of the earlier attempts at "clincher reform" were, IIRC, pretty
crappy. One could easily have thought that "quality clincher" was a
pipe dream that would never take root.

Clipless pedals
This one is huge for me. When I had toestraps tightened enough to work
- and I kept 'em pretty loose - I still had killer problems with cold
feet in winter. With clipless, I have lots of room for shoe covers,
etc., not to mention other advantages. I know we don't all agree, but
the overwhelming adoption of clipless can't /just/ be marketing.
BUT OMG were there a bunch of poor, crappy, and even
disastrous/dangerous clipless designs early on. Sampson comes to mind,
or especially the Cinelli M71 pedal. I've forgotten the names of most
of the others, but they certainly gave the impression that clipless
pedals were crazy.

Indexed shifting
Again, we don't all agree, but the overwhelming majority of cyclists
seem to think that index shifting is a pretty neat idea. Despite some
real turkeys early on (Positron and Positron II, anyone?), turkeys that
"clearly" signaled that index shifting was an answer to a question
nobody asked, it turns out you *can* make a quality indexed shifter.
Who knew?

I could go on. Brifters, LED/LiPo lights, aluminum and carbon frames,
bicycle computers, nylon saddles (that's reaching back many years), and
yes, disc brakes, etc. - and all those advances coming on the scene with
many poor early designs, and surrounded by junk we still laugh about
that never amounted to anything. But if we could tell which inventions
would blossom when we first saw them, we'd all have invested in Intel
and Microsoft in the 70's and be rich now.

So even though I agree with Frank about "churn" in large part, that
churn turns out a few not-immediately-recognizable innovations that most
of us are glad about. A sort of Darwinian evolution, if you will.
While the industry may be super-mature, it ain't done yet.

Mark J.

I can remember when BIYCLING magazine had an article about NOT needing 15
gears on a bicycle. They stated in their article that 10 gears was more than enough.

I've tried clipless pedals but had problems getting out of them at times
and then falling over and getting scraped up a bit. Therefore I went back
to toeclips. For most of my riding I don't even have to snug up the
straps let alone tighten them up yet my feet stay on the pedals.
Besides, toestraps have LOTS of other uses. I've used one to keep a
dressing on a cut on a leg. I've used them to secure a jacket and tights
to the underside of my saddle after the temperatures rose to from quite
chilly to quite warm. I've used a toestrap to secure an extra water
bottle under a saddle. I've looped a toestrap around my handlebar and
stem and used it as makeshift bottle holder to hold a cup of coffee. I
used 2 toestraps joined together to hold something to the rear rack on a
bicycle. Hard to do any of that if you have clipless pedals. LOL VBEG ;)

I can remember too when downtube shifters sometimes would wear, or at
least the innards would, to the point where it was nearly impossible to
keep in the gear one wanted.

I think pneumatic clincher tires with separate tubes, decent derailleurs
and decent index shifting are 3 of the major innovations that caused
bicycling to grow as much as it has in North America.

I like my Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters on my touring bike. The left
shifter is ratchet and thus it's dead simple to trim the front
derailleur. I find I shift more often on hills with a load with the Ergos
t han I did even with bar-end shifters. However, I still like my downtube
shifters that i have on some of my other bikes. I especially like my
top-center mounted Dura Ace AX shifters and my top-center downtube
mounted Suntour symetric shifters (?) because they can be shifted front
and rear with just one hand at the same time.

In winter I really like my Lyotard MB23 platform pedals*. They're Frank's favourite pedals.

For me and for many others even 7 gears in t he rear with 2 or 3
chainrings is plenty. I like Shimano 9-speed clusters because I can set
them up with 7 cogs for most riding but with 2 larger cogs for bailout
gears. I use a Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters and rear derailler to shift my
9-speed Shimano cassette on my touring bike.

Some folks who are really into fitness riding or fast-paced group riding
probably love more gears because the increases in effort between gears
isn't as great as it is in 7, 6, or 5 speed cassettes.

Again a lot of bicycle innovations are different horses for different courses.

At least now we have a lot of equipment choices that can be used to give
us the customized bike we WANT or NEED for OUR style of riding.


That last sentence says it all.



--
duane

Something the 'dinosaurs' will never understand and claim everone is a victim of marketing. When I bought my first serious roadbike I had the choice between 3 saddles: junk, crap and doesn't fit.....

Lou

Yet, Brooks was marketing saddles in 1888. A saddle that even today
people pay rather astonishing amounts of money to own and ride.
The B-17 was introduced in the 1890's and is still marketed today.
That is nearly 130 years that folks have been buying that particular
saddle which would seem to indicate that it is not considered as
"junk, crap and doesn't fit".


Cheers,
John B.

On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:53:35 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/14/2019 1:43 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 1/13/19 11:21 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

But I know I'm an oddball retrogrouch.

Lol. You could use that as a posting name :-)

But boy, when they start selling carbon fiber inner wires for shifters,
I'm jumping on those. And carbon fiber safety pins for keeping my pants
cuffs out of the chain. Think of the weight savings!** ;-)

See, there you go, I use velcro straps now because they are more
comfortable, and don't distort wrt to the traditional mild steel ones,
nobody foisted that on me, I can buy the old ones if I want, the velcro
ones are better.

Do you have a link for the CF ones...?

If I could find carbon fibre safety pins to keep your trouser cuffs out of
your chain, I'd buy them and send them to Frank, just to read the ensuing
rant. :-)

Oh no, I'd love them! I can't wait!

When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I jokingly suggested some
safety pins made of hollow titanium wire, for the weight savings.

But then it occurred to me, I really would like some brass ones. The
steel ones rust after a while. So I mentioned those.

I didn't get any. :-(

Try "plus four" pants. No need of a safety pins or clips.

If jeans with holes ripped in them are a fashion statement then
knickers, as they were known in my youth, must be nearly a "full
dress" uniform :-)


Cheers,
John B.

On 1/14/2019 6:03 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/14/2019 12:53 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/14/2019 1:43 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 1/13/19 11:21 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

But I know I'm an oddball retrogrouch.

Lol.Â* You could use that as a posting name :-)

But boy, when they start selling carbon fiber inner
wires for shifters,
I'm jumping on those. And carbon fiber safety pins for
keeping my pants
cuffs out of the chain. Think of the weight savings! Â
;-)

See, there you go, I use velcro straps now because they
are more
comfortable, and don't distort wrt to the traditional
mild steel ones,
nobody foisted that on me, I can buy the old ones if I
want, the velcro
ones are better.

Do you have a link for the CF ones...?

If I could find carbon fibre safety pins to keep your
trouser cuffs out of
your chain, I'd buy them and send them to Frank, just to
read the ensuing
rant. :-)

Oh no, I'd love them! I can't wait!

When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I jokingly
suggested some safety pins made of hollow titanium wire, for
the weight savings.

But then it occurred to me, I really would like some brass
ones. The steel ones rust after a while. So I mentioned those.

I didn't get any.Â*Â* :-(



The Ancients had them and they may be found yet:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-LARGE-B... r:rk:12:pf:0


There are other styles on ebay right now.

It's not a problem. Joann Fabrics has them, and it's a short bike ride
away. I just hoped they'd show up as a gift, for fun.


--
- Frank Krygowski