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
Heather Coffman sent us a tweet about a helpful way to end a long phone conversation: I’ll let you go so you can glue your ears and legs back on. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “I’ll Let You Go” Heather Kaufman sent us a tweet...
Carol in Williamsburg, Virginia, wonders why if you bake something and don’t rely on pre-mixed ingredients, you’re said to bake it from scratch. This expression originally referred to a line scratched into the ground to mark the starting point of a...