I am thinking, 20 miles a day for 5 days of the week.  Some weeks I do catch the train and some weeks I am holiday and don’t go to work.  So let’s way 40 weeks over the year, which means (10*5)*40 = 4000 miles for the Marin on my daily commute to work over the last year.  Depressingly that’s a huge lot more than I have done on the Royal tourer over the last 12 months.   I wasn’t surprised when I notice the rear tyre was pretty much bald.  The Marin came with Schwalbe Road Cruiser tyres, the entry level tyre but a Schwalbe all the same which I was happy with at the time and I’ve never had a puncture on.  Their website suggests around 2000 to 5000 miles on these and so I’m happy to budget a replacement each year  (by comparison, the Schwalbe Marathan Plus tyres that my Royal tourer has suggests 10,000 miles).     The front tyre has plenty of tread left, with the rear getting most of the weight of both myself and work luggage I think it has done pretty well – and good for Marin for fitting these as standard.   Unlike the higher spec Marathan Plus tyres, the Road Cruisers are a lot lighter and a lot more free running, they seem like the ideal choice for a daily commute.

I fitted the new tyre this morning, no hassle at all with everything done within the hour.   I also took the opportunity to replace both sets of brake blocks (rear’s needs replacing every six months it seems) and as it was going cheap I bought a small rear mirror.     The idea of a mirror on a bike isn’t something I have thought much about in the past and I always thought them to be a bit clumsy looking and probably vibrate about so much that they fail to help.   This mirror is a bit different in that it is small and meant to fit not on the handlebars but on the forks or crossbar, keeping it out of the way and maybe a bit more stable.   I don’t expect it to be used like a car mirror but more of a 5 second warning before a car behind me tries to do something silly that I can now notice out of the corner of my eye and either take action of look behind me to confirm depending on how near pending death is likely.   Who knows, at only a couple of pounds it is worth giving it a try.  Infact, it is not so much cars and pending death I am worried about but more close passes by other pushbikes of which there are many on the mean streets (and cyclepaths) of Brighton.