The Franklin sounds intriguing; can you post a photo? Your experience may well be due to tubing differences; I know that my Matthews, built from thinwall, heat treated stuff compared to the excessively stout tubing of the original Fargo, and with a delicately shaped "French" curve instead of the Fargo's girder legs, rolls smoother over small bumps -- washboard, eg -- with the same wheels and tires. But tires and casings and widths and pressures can also cause this sort of difference.
My own experience with tires fat and skinny -- from 19 mm (labeled; this was at a time when I naively thought (1) skinnier was faster; (2) labeled width was the actual width, and (3) labeled max press was the best press) to 65 mm actual width (60 mm Big Apple regulars on 50 mm SnoCat SLs) -- is that tire pressure, casing, and width all play a tortured, complex, and often inscrutable ballet or fugue or minuet together, and that -- wala!! -- sometimes fatter tires feel **harder** than skinnier tires, and sometimes thinskin, supple tires feel **harder** than thickwall utility tires. I'll explain. I'll start with an anecdote. For years I rode 26" X1" (559 X 22 mm actual on my skinny rims) Specialized Turbos at 110 psi, later, wising up, reducing that to 80/90 f/r. **These felt cushiony and smooth** as long as you were riding over chipseal or small cracks and not our 6" to 8" expansion cracks. OTOH, 35 mm Fatboys pumped to sidewall max (try that with a Blackburn Airstick, 1990 model!) bounced you around on all but the slickest pavement. Even reducing the Fatboys, and later similarly wide Kojaks to 50 psi: sure, the 35s (32 actual) handled big cracks better, but over rough, worn pavement? Nope, the 22s were at least as smooth if not smoother. Reasons? Well, suppleness for one thing, but also, tire pressure tradeoff. The 22s at ~90 were so skinny, as well as supple, that they "gave" at each little bump. The downside? Pinch flat and rim damage if you hit something too big too hard. I personally am a delicate rider and never got pinch flats on those tires, even with 40 lb rear loads (broke a spoke or 2, though, with aluminum nipples and Revolutions). The Kojaks were smoother than the Fatboys, but to get the same cush, you had to reduce the pressure to almost -- **almost** -- wallowy softenss. 32 mm Paselas, light 240 grams, even worse; soft and they bounced; no bounce, and they jarred. I recall swapping the 60 mm Big Apples, thick stout things, for very supple Furious Freds (60 mm/50 mm, 900 grams versus 360 grams. 800 grams for the BA "lite" model) and being disappointed that the FFs seemed to be as harsh over bumps as the BAs. The reason was that, with the paper-thin sidewalls, I had to pump them to at least 18 psi, while I often rode the BAs with thicker sidewalls at 15. The balance between "soggy" and "harsh" was a difficult one to achieve. I switched to 60 mm Big Ones -- 90 grams heavier than the 50 mm FFs at 450 grams. Again, pump them hard enough to not lose control on fastish pavement corners, and they are surprisingly harsh over bumps -- the minimum is about 18 psi, tho' I usually run them at 19-21 for less wallowing in pavement corners. Upshot of all this driveling: you can put fat tires on a bike and pump them to the minimum psi to prevent wallow or bouncing, and you may find that this minimum pressure makes them harsher than you'd think, to the point where, in certain situations, a 32 mm supple tire at a pressure just high enough to avoid bouncing or pinch flats actually feels softer over certain bumps than a fatter tire at a lower pressure. On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 5:10 PM Garth <garth...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I've been riding my Franklin Reynolds 531ST custom from from '99 a whole > lot lately..... man I like that bike. I had the 62 c-c frame made with a > 62cm TT and 46cm chainstays. I originally used the Dirt Drop bars from > Nitto but now use an Albatross 56cm steel. 36/46 Origin8 crank and Sachs > 7sp. 13-32 freewheel. > > speaking of big tires and all ... well riddle me this Batman how this > bike literally just floats over patch paved and cruddy washed out gravel > roads with not so fancy 33mm Forte Metro ST tires that were about $15 .... > and my Bombadil regardless of the tires I've used even at very low pressure > is jarring as heck ? Exact same wheels builds on both. It's also easier for > me to maintain my line and speed with the road bike up steep washed out > backwoods gravel roads also, corrections are wholly intuitive and > effortless. Watching the fork flex like crazy over bumpy roads is also fun > ! > > I could only "guess" it has a whole lot to do with the tubing and it's > design I suppose. Regardless, it's great and even though I've not yet > received my Suzie it has me rethinking the whole thing. I "hope" the Susie > is a whole lot more vertically resilient than the Bomba. But those Hilly > frames are a once in a lifetime "try" for me though. If not, I'll have > another road kinda bike made. Does Reynolds even make 531 anymore ? > > Also, a wider tire is just wider, not necessarily better or worse. I love > narrow tires as I grew up riding them so it's quite intuitive for me. I > rode many a pairs of Specialized Touring Turbo 27x 1/8 or 1/4. Those are > what I knew as "road tires" even before I got into road racing tires which > were even narrower. There is such a distinct feel, a precision that gets > lost in wider tires from all the bikes I've ridden. I've tried some wider > tires on my road bike and it just felt odd. It seems pretty obvious to me > that a frame that is quite compliant doesn't need overly wide tires to ride > "soft" and cushy. > > Then there's the simplicity of double crank and the ease of which to throw > on various parts. I also had cantilevers put on the frame and use Suntour > XC Pro's, and they are outstanding, I've never had such a effective brake. > It's also darn light to me, even with the heavy duty Phil/Mavic wheels that > are on it. > > Hooray for road-tire bikes ! > > > -- > 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 rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/14fa1d54-51e7-4b50-b6cb-9f91bbccef7bo%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/14fa1d54-51e7-4b50-b6cb-9f91bbccef7bo%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum -- 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 rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgsp4WC%3D2_HqQtMUud5N8__x_tdfH6snG3SwSxpm0UMa9Q%40mail.gmail.com.
