Bike Tweaks: A Lighter and Brighter Thorn

I have made a few changes to the bike which hopefully will improve lightness and brightness without too many side-effects.

The adjustments are:

- Removal of the 26" x 2.0" Schwalbe Marathon XRs and replacement with 26"x1.60" (42-559) folding Schwalbe Marathon Supremes. At only 440g each, these tyres are about 50% the weight of the XRs. It will be interesting to see if they roll better. They won't grip as well on the unsealed roads, but these are only about a tenth of the route.
The inner tubes are a Michelin AirComp Ultra light 26" x 1.6-2.1, and a Michelin Airstop Butyl 1.1-1.5 Both have Presta valves.

- Removal of the Topeak large bottle cage and replacement with a standard cage. This smaller cage holds a 500 ml fuel bottle and is lighter than the Topeak.

- Fitting a lightweight (25g) back-up front light and and a couple of extra, small, rear, flashing lights.

- Fitting a Lezyne high volume mini-floor pump.

- Fitting a chain slap protector.

- Fitting mudguards

And the changes look like this:

The new Lezyne mini floor pump. It's the high volume, rather than the high pressure version.

This standard size bottle cage replaces a much bigger Topeak cage which could hold a 1.5 litre bottle. This smaller one is adequate and holds a small fuel bottle.

The new chain slap protector on the chain stay.

The rear lighting set up now includes an additional small flasher on the rack and one on the seat post (not shown) which provides good all-round visibility and backup for the main CatEye light.

The new tyres. Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 26"x 1.60" (42-559) weight is 440 grams.

The 1.6" Schwalbe Marathon Supreme is a slick tyre but reputed to also handle unsealed surfaces with the exception of very steep, loose trails. The tyres look and feel substantial and appear fine for a reasonably tough tour even though they are almost 50% lighter, and a lot less nobbly than the XRs they are replacing.

The 26" x 2.0" Schwalbe Marathon XR tyres being replaced by the narrower, lighter, smoother, faster 1.6" Marathon Supremes.

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