I still believe that for tires 38 mm and wider, 650B offers more nimble handling, while also improving the packaging of the tire between the chainstays of the bike. Two things made us re-consider our opinion on wide 700C tires:
1. We all ride the bikes we have, not the ones we wish to have, and there are many, many bikes that can be improved with a set of supple, wide 700C tires. In fact, we just tested such a machine <http://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/autumn-2014-bicycle-quarterly/> (Ritchey Swiss Cross) that went from a good machine to a great one with the addition of these tires. 2. Some riders may prefer a more stable machine, that doesn't react to small inputs as much, and thus works better with a firmer grip on the handlebars. Anyhow, the tires are available, and we now hope that we'll amortize the tooling costs eventually. It's a big leap of faith to offer tires that are different from anything previously available (i.e., wide and supple 700C tires), and the future will tell whether they'll be a success. 55 or 60 mm-wide 700C tires: Packaging those becomes difficult, unless you go to mountain bike cranks with very wide tread (Q factor). You basically need to build a 29er, and that isn't really what Compass Bicycles is about. We are about road bikes, even if those roads often are poorly surfaced or gravel. Hence we use the term "Allroad", but the "road" part – as in spirited ride and nimble handling – is very important to us. Jan Heine Compass Bicycles On Tuesday, September 2, 2014 7:22:30 PM UTC-7, Steve Palincsar wrote: > > On 09/02/2014 09:43 PM, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote: > > I doubt it. I was surprised to see 700x38 coming from Jan due to his > > stance on larger diameter 700c tires. > > But there was a steady stream of pleading, coaxing and cajoling, begging > him to do a 700x38 here and on the iBOB list. 55 and 60, not so much. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
