After getting my third flat bicycle tire in as many weeks, went to my local bike shop to get a kevlar reinforced tire (which I’m assured is the best way to prevent such things, those “slime” filled inner tubes being useless IMO).
I was told by the guy in the store that they are hard to get hold of nowadays as Kevlar is in such short supply because of the war in Iraq. He also mentioned Kevlar climbing equipment is equally hard to get hold of.
I’m a little skeptical, though I could see it being true (body armour being kinda important, and apparently in short supply). Whats the SD on this ? Google found a bunch of threads in related forums but nothing definitive.
Probably not Iraq and Afghanistan specifically, just market forces in general. Found this press release:
Kevlar keeps turning up in more and more places–cast an eye over DuPont’s official list–so yeah, growing global demand, not entirely connected to war. Actually, just offhand, it looks to me like there’s more “non-war” stuff on there than “war” stuff. The Ove Glove? We sold out of those at Walgreens in a couple of days.
I buy acres of the stuff for PPE: jackets, aprons, wrist guards, gloves, etc, and we use miles of kevlar rope to wrap our rollers. My vendor has held his pricing for over three years now. (Diesel fuel, on the other hand, is killing us)
I’m thinking your bicycle store guy is too small a customer to his vendor to keep his pricing low for the sake of volume.
A bit of a hijacking, but if you’re looking for a nearly flat-proof road tire (you don’t specify the type of bike) I recommend the nearly indestructable Continental Gatorskin or the nearly as nearly indestructable Kenda Kaliente.
Both are very high-quality and flat resistant and readily obtained via the internet.
I suspect the kevlar-shortage is a bit of a whale-tale, but I’m no expert with the vagaries of the Kevlar or Spectra market.