sew-up
n.— «Race on Tubular tires, also known as “sew-ups”—When I was a young buck in college I actually got into a bit of serious cycling and raced for a while. It wasn’t long before I realized that all of the fast guys rode on Tubular tires. Tubbies as I like to call them differ from clinchers in that they don’t have beads. Instead, the two edges of the tire are sewn together around the inner tube. Tubulars are used on special rims, and are held on to the rims by glue. Tubulars used to be fairly common on high-performance bicycles, but these days they are an endangered species on most bikes.» —“Top 10 Ways to Suck at Your Next Race” by Roman Mica EverymanTri (Boulder, Colorado) July 5, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...
Perfect sentences and slang that tickles your mind! A new book of writing advice says a good sentence “imposes a logic on the world’s weirdness” and pares away options for meaning, word by word. • Your musician friend may refer to...