John writes:
> The care and feeding instructions which came with the tyres recommend
> using Westley's bleach-white sidewall cleaner, and _not_rubbing_ with
> anything abrasive.
Hear! Hear! I have long been an admirer of Westley's Bleche-Wite (note
the strange spelling... :-) and recommend it highly. It's cheap, easy
to find and cleans any tires. Accept no substitutes!
Some caveats: The tire absolutely _must_ be dry to start with. A wet
tire apparently neutralizes the chemical reaction (bleach, I suppose).
Spray it on generously and _let_ _stand_ for a couple of minutes, during
which time the stuff will turn an ugly greenish-brown as it works. Avoid
getting the spray up your nose; it hurts. If applying this to a really
filthy tire, you may want to work it in a bit with a damp sponge, but
normally the soak alone will do the trick. Then blast the tire with a
strong stream of water for a good rinse. (On whitewall tires, they may
continue to whiten for a few minutes more after rinsing, I notice.)
I recommend that you skip the small pump-spray bottle size, which is
fiddly to hold and awful on the fingers to pump extensively) in favor of
the larger trigger-type spray bottle. Later on you can obtain 1/2-gallon
refill jugs to refill the sprayer with.
(Satisfied customer only, no connection to Bleche-Wite, etc.)
> The stripes are cold-vulcanized on (whatever that means).
They're glued on. (Cold-vulcanizing is what you do with patches on bicycle
inner-tubes.) This is not to imply poor quality, you understand...
Andrew C. Green
Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@hermes.dlogics.com
441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg
Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473
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