In Praise of Family Business

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A small shout out to Hackers' Tyres in Bangor, North Wales. This Beach Road-based family firm are my car-tyre suppliers of choice. I went there today because of a small sidewall nick on the passenger front wheel of the car. The tyre's not losing pressure and the nick looks superficial, but I don't trust sidewall damage at all: it can go very pear-shaped very quickly at speed.

I'd looked in there the other day and the youngest lad asked all the right questions and came to the same conclusion as me that around town it should be OK. But this being North Wales, local means something a bit different to say Birmingham. Twenty-five miles is considered pretty local around here, and some of that will inevitably be travelled on the A55 for sure; which is effectively motorway and means sixty to seventy most of the way: a sidewall blowout on a front tyre on a small skate like my motor at that speed gives me the willies, so I opted to swap out my spare, which has a brand-new tyre on it, for the one in question, leaving that as a pro tem limp home job.

Hackers swapped the two wheels, which took a couple of minutes, and waived any charge at all. This is so rare these days and so welcome: even though I was already their customer, the guy was giving his time for free. The curious thing is, that I now drive a small, tinny Citroën - a C1 city car: thirty years ago, Hackers supplied the tyres for my first car - also a Citroën [2CV] - which cost about the same then as the tyres for this one now. The old 2CV was a wonderful little thing [see blog post, passim: Tin Snail] but the wheels were a then rare metric size, and the tyres cost a relative fortune. The same amount of cash now buys me tyres at 2021 value, making them the cheapest tyres I've ever needed to buy! So, diolch yn fawr iawn, Hackers: my patronage is guaranteed.

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