On 10/19/2014 03:08 PM, Mike Schiller wrote:
as far as I know... the demi balloon tire resurgence started in Japan with some die-hard French Cyclo-touring folks who got the Hetre made. Jan imported them to the US and started riding that kind of bike. Certainly Grant was an influence in parallel for fat tired bikes in today's market, and deserves some credit.
Let's not forget the Saluki: the first 650B bike to be sold in the US since the 1980s.
Also, many road bikes in the 70's and 80's had room for 32-35mm tires. Raleigh and Trek come to mind. There does appear to be a boom in that market today, but it's still a tiny fly on a donkey's hind end in total bike sales.
Is that really true? What percentage of the total bike market is made up of narrow-tired road racers? Certainly MTBs, hybrids & comfort bikes would have to fall into the wide-tire camp. Just going by shelf-space alloted to the various types of bikes in the LBSs I visit I'd have to say that it appears to be closer to 50% than "a tiny fly on a donkey's hind end."
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