Ashchest

I had 4 x bad quality Dot's The first 2 that I bought was shipped to me on the 4th Nov 2019. I received 2 x replacements on the 22nd Nov Replaced them with Pathfinders on the 24th Jan All 4 of them was similar and a very poor quality tyre. I sent an email on the 27th Jan to inform Farr about the failures on the replacements and my decision to use other tyres. I received a response here yesterday after posting my experience on this thread.

Yes lucky you, but for me it was strange to encounter such issues after they were recommended on this forum -and I thought there was something really wrong with the way I applied them since no one else reported issues - on the contrary people raved about them. So when matthieup reported very similar quality issues my sanity was restored. I went out this morning for a 40km ride on my normal routes with lots of small glass pieces and every now and then I would hear that dreaded pssst pssst pssst pssst sound of sealant spraying out, but when I look down I saw no signs of any sealant on my frame - just to learn that it was the sound of early morning garden sprayers or the sound of cicades singing and not the sound of Dot's failing

Forgot to mention. I did contact the guys at Farr after the failures on the replacements they sent me and told them what happened and that I decided to try the Pathfinder's and see how they perform compared to the Dot's - but they never replied to my mail - not sure if you guys never read my mail or just didn't bother to reply?

Yes they are great if you are looking for a gravel tyre but want to do a-lot of road riding with it. Not as wide as the Dot's with much less volume and you will at first feel a bit less grip on the rear than what you are used to with the Dot's, but they will not fail you and they are faaast and tuff and have a very nice ride feel!! So go get them! The Dot's are 'n great idea and would be excellent if the quality and durability were better. But to struggle with small cuts after and during nearly every ride along with the bubbles / bulges became an absolute pain. Here where I live and love to cycle 100km + loops in Centurion & Voortrekker Hoogte area are a-lot of small pieces of glass in the roads and on the sides. The Pathfinder Pro's simply crushes the glass, but the Dot's would swallow them and the glass will sit in the tyre and slowly cut through. At least once per week I had to remove a Dot and patch it from the inside - even the smallest of punctures would become big problems - even after trying tubeless repair plugs it would not seal and seemed as if the holes just got ripped wider. Too soft a rubber? Perhaps. They are not worth R550 - even my much cheaper R250 Chaoyang semi-slick tyres are more robust and gave much less problems than these Dot's I then started talking to some shops and riders about this and the guys at the Specialized store in Centurion said yes, there are lots of glass on the roads, but they have never seen or experienced failure feedback from clients like what I had with the Dot's and advised me to try the Pathfinder's. So happy I did and I guess my money wasted with Farr on their tyres became school fees and taught me to rather stick with reliable brand names.

Oh dear!! Seems I was not the only one then?? I went through 4 x Farr Dots within 2 & 1/2 months and ended up tossing them because they were the most unreliable and lowest quality tyres I ever used ! Yes they ride great and feel solid, but I ended up not feeling safe out on the road with them. Around 1200 km's on 4 x tyres and a total waste of my money. Farr did send me 2 replacements after the first failures, but those replacements also failed Bubbles in the tires, endless punctures that wouldn't seal with sealant and more bubbles. I also had the imperfections. At the end the only way to get rid of the bubbles were to puncture them and they would escape gas and go away and then new bubbles formed somewhere else. I thought that if I puncture the bubbles and they leaked sealant then it must have been failure or from the inside, but no sealant and only gas escaped and gone was the bubble - yes one has to make a plan when you want to ride and have no other tyres, so I punctured the bubbles I ended up buying a set of Specialized Pathfinder Pro's and they are excellent and so durable + from the start the quality that one would expect from a proper bicycle tyre. For only R110 more than the Dot's per tyre. Have done about 750 km's with the Pathfinder's and they are great - not one puncture and they are still as good as new. I run my tyre pressures on the higher side at about 65 - 70 psi because 90% of my riding is on the road. Farr told me that my pressures are very high although they were within the specification printed on the tyres. So I felt that maybe the fault was with me and the way I utilised them, but after seeing your post I now realise that these Dot's are just plain crappy and inferior and that I made a mistake to spend money with Farr. The question now is, was this just a bad batch and were we unlucky to have wasted out money on the bad ones, or is this the general quality of the Farr Dot tyres? And ..... what about the other Farr products, because I really like the look of their Carbon forks, but now not sure if they and the other products might also fail me?

6 Only R10,99 for a quart

Having 2 x 750 ml LION's right now for my early morning ride tomorrow morning.

I guess the pro riders eats the wannabees for breakfast?

For an event like upcoming Cape Cycle Tour I will have to eat something before the time because I am definitely not going to start at 5am and probably only at around 8? - then ride until around 12 - So I think a nice big bowl of Pronutro before and some bits of snack during will do the job. The main reason why I have coffee before my early morning weekend rides is to (jokes aside) get my stomach to go before the ride. Coffee does always perform the magic very well for me and I'd much prefer it to happen before rather than during my ride

That's the way I roll - my weekend 100+ km rides start at 5am with only a strong coffee in the bag and that's all. Why? I recon there is enough fuel in my system from previous day's meals? After the ride I am always hungry and then I'll enjoy a nice breakfast

Not by riding a bike with it - I did check it out and "played" in shop but it also did not play along with my budget. Below is a review / comparison between the two ... ?

I got a Gravel bike now that I ride more than any of my previous MTB's - does that count as a fully rigid?

If I buy a MTB again then I will probably buy a Hardtail and ride like a real man

Some of my GP 300 adventures ...

I have done some bits of very short singletrack but have not taken it out on any long non-technical trails yet. The bike always amazes me when I take it off the road onto some singletrack and nice when passing some MTB'ers with the drop bars. I have been playing with the idea of taking it to some of the local trail parks such as Northern Farm and Big Red Barn to ride some of the easy trails.... I guess if you put some high volume 650B 50mm knobbies on them then they will soak up some singletrack nicely? Have no experience with the R355 apart from seeing them in a shop, but I guess they will be just as solid if not more than their ALU GP brothers?

Well it's still on my bike and I have probably become very used to it by now. I'll have to take it off and put a normal stem on in order to give you any answer apart from my first impressions on here when I first installed it. It does what it says - about 20 mm of smooth travel on the bars. Happy that I have it and if a 20mm quality travel is what you are looking for then this is probably one of the best options out there?

Quick update. I now reached 3 000 km's on my GP 300 and it has performed awesome. Zero problems and all I can say is that it has been a blast and delivered much fun and joy to date! I replaced the KMC X11 chain with a new one at 2300 km's because it was worn and along with the new chain I also installed a new shifter cable and housing. The SRAM 1 X 11 Apex / Rival combo performs well and like said before the TRP Spyre mechanical brakes have been sufficient for my riding. I removed and cleaned the Spyre brakes earlier this week and inspected the pads and they are still at about 65%. Yesterday I did a routine clean and inspection of the free-hub and all still good. The only challenge has been to find the best Tubeless tyres for my riding style and something that is reliable. The Stock MSO's were not tubeless and although I only did my first 1000 km's with them and with tubes, they performed well and are pretty tough. The Farr Dot's are ok but I had too many problems with them and decided to try something different and now settled for Specialized Pathfinder Pro's - let's see how they perform. All in all I love my 2018 GP 300 ride and am looking forward to go and ride the Cape Town Cycle Tour with it!!

Long story but here we go! Let's see if this will work for me? Took them for a 55km spin this morning and so far so good.

Here is a Article with photo's that I did for our recent camp at TO Strand - it was awesome!!! Click here: TO Strand

Never a cat for me again. With a female, all the neighbouring male cats would come into my house and spray their smelly urine all over the place.

Hoelykit? Is arme ou Nic darem weer ok? Siestog

Sterkte mater

My friend from Polokwane decided to build his own assisted mountain bike - converted a Totem he bought from Makro. I know it is not an "e-bike" but very close. Read here: Fiets met n twist

Tubeless is a learning process indeed. Previously running tubeless on my MTB was something I had to learn how to prep and fit and seal the wheels. Now I can do it quickly. I thought the same processes would apply when I went tubeless on my gravel bike, but it was a new learning process especially because of the higher pressures as opposed to MTB wheels. It is easy to run tubeless om 2 bar wheels, but when you run it on 4 bar or higher pressure wheels then different challenges present themselves. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the road bike wheels and running tubeless, but I guess the higher pressures also present some different getting used to methods. Luckily once you understand your wheels and how to make them work and keep working tubeless, then the tubeless route becomes a no brainer and it is hard to go back to tubes. On the 947 I noticed many people next to the road fixing wheels and fitting new tubes, lucky I wasn't one of them - But when I got home I noticed sealant that sprayed against my seatpost - After inspection of the rear wheel I was able to find 2 places where sealant was excreted and found the small holes - luckily sealed fine and the wheel still had good pressure ...

So I just need to bring it to everyone's attention that these Farr-out guys really care about their clients and gives amazing client service and after sales support! Thank you Farrnus for the extremely quick responses and action during this week, and for making me a very very happy and satisfied FARR customer! I don't think I have ever experienced such quick response and support anywhere with any online supplier that I use - THANKS !!!