On my way back from Manchester today after seeing the Spice Girls! Woop, I made a detour to a Wilko to get a bike tyre. My initial thought about those cheaper brand tyres are that they seem to be more plastic that rubber, so have a higher shore and less grip. Anyway, I went into town the store, and it was one of those smaller stores that have smaller range of stock and no bike tyres! Got some grass seed so that’s good.

A quick google and a Halfords was 4 minutes away so popped into there and yay, 4 tyres! 2 super slick road bikes, maybe not as useful, one mountain bike with no knobbly bikes, and one good tyre that seems to have been slashed by a disgruntled motorist... anyway, I now have 2 out of 6 useful tyres so this week I will be making some new lighter wheels.

Had a lovely chat to the store assistant too about combat robots and said the touring events will be around the north area And to check out extreme robots. She asked about ticket costs as her son would love to see it, so hopefully drumming up some audience too

I’m also going to try and machine the current wheels down to fit onto the wheel hubs as I have enough weight to play with now so I can use the current wheels with the new hubs should I not have enough grip.

Thank you to Halfords Eastleigh and Manchester! And Eastleigh Tip