On my Rivendells I've noticed that, irrespective of the surface I'm riding on, I actually prefer the handling with larger knobby tires than with larger slick tires. This is true on both my Clem H (2016, first-gen) with 45-55mm tires and my Rambouillet (green, ~2006 as far as I can tell) with 36-38mm tires. My explanation for this is that Grant tends to design bikes with larger geometric trail. When you add in the pneumatic trail of larger slick tires, the whole thing can feel harder to turn. Knobby tires give you the same shock absorption while putting less rubber on the pavement, thus reducing the pneumatic trail. Jan Heine has noted this effect himself when comparing knobby and slick versions of his tires.
My Rambouillet current wears RH (actually Compass, they're a few years old) Steilacoom 700x38 knobbies. My Clem H has 29x2.2 Specialized Fast Traks with the "Control" casing, which is an XC-oriented MTB tire with relatively minimal knobs that rolls well on pavement. In my experience there is no free lunch when it comes to supple casings and flats. Certainly the ride is better with things like the RH standard casing but my rate of flatting from glass and thorns goes up. Sealant and tubeless haven't been the solution, in my experience, and I run both of my Rivendells with tubes. Since Patrick was also mentioning them I will say that I've used both the 700x42 and 700x38 versions of the Soma Supple Vitesse EX on my Long Haul Trucker, which seems to handle better with large slicks than my Rivendells. Those are good tires with an acceptable flat rate for me. I also tried the 700x38 SL version on my Rambouillet and found that not only did I not like the handling, but the flat rate was excessive for me. Note that the only difference between the EX and SL Supple Vitesses is the thickness of the tread, with the EX having thicker treads. Unlike RH and other brands there is no difference in the casing between the lightweight and longer wearing versions. I believe that the Shikiro is the same tread as the Supple Vitesse EX with a heavier duty casing. Jeremy Till Sacramento, CA On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 8:26:17 AM UTC-7 ted.l...@gmail.com wrote: > I’ve had tires on the brain this last week. I was thinking I might want to > try something a little narrower on my Appaloosa so I’ve been a bit absorbed > with that thought. > > At the moment I run the SimWorks Super Yummy tire with the black sidewall > in 29x2.25”. I previously had their 26x2.25” tan wall tires on a 26” build > and absolutely loved them on that bike. Unfortunately, in the larger size, > with the sort of riding I do (spirited, urban, all-road) I find the tires > sluggish and a bit unpredictable at times. Combined with the 25mm wide rim > I use, the tires measure to close to 60mm wide. > > I was thinking about trying to find a tire with a more rounded profile and > something that would be a bit narrower, somewhere in the 44-48mm range to > start. > > I’ve been looking primarily at the Rene Herse tires. I have a friend who > runs the Pumpkin Ridge (650x42) tire on his bike of a similar purpose and > absolutely loves them. I’ve used the Naches Pass (26x1.8) on another build > and also liked them a lot, but found that despite being the “endurance” > casing, they were very prone to small punctures and didn’t handle the > typical road debris around where I ride very well; this is one of the > reasons I’ve typically stuck with knobbier tires. > > The ones on my short list are currently the Manatash Ridge (700x42) and > Oracle Ridge (700x48) tires from RH. > > I’m curious to know and see what others on the list use and have liked. If > you have pictures, I’d also love to see what they look like (particularly > 42mm on frames like the Appaloosa). > > — Ted > -- 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/bc2fcafe-d11b-4af1-a104-144e33a9c1c2n%40googlegroups.com.
