3. Someone told me about some wide rubber band things I should put around
the wheel to cover the dimples where the spokes connect. I presume this
is to prevent inner tube chafing. I have lots of MGB catalogs (Moss,
etc.) but no one shows these things. Am I dreaming?
On a bicycle, this is called 'rim tape'. There are long debates about
what kind to use and why, but no debate at all that it's important. The
basic reason is that it protects the inner tube from poking against the
potentially sharp ends of spokes (bicycle spokes are, not surprisingly,
much thinner than car spokes).
Bicycles have a different set of problems than cars, though. For
example, one fellow I know was having problems on his tandem bicycle,
getting flats during long descents. The problem turned out to be that
his rims got hot (remember that most bikes brake by applying pads to
the rims, close to the wheel) and the heat was being transmitted
through the spoke ends to the inner tube. He solve the problem by
installing thicker rim tape.
You probably won't have this problem on your car, but you might want
some equivalent of rim tape, anyway :-)
chris
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