Huge part of this is because there isn’t a big personality behind the wheelsize. DJ was the main mover behind bigger tires and did it through youtube, podcasts, and actual race results. The biggest personality behind 650b, Jan Heine, is not on youtube, doesn’t podcast regularly, and does not have race results to show. And he basically doesn’t ride 650b anymore.
I think if there was a Top 10-15 LTGP rider next year who went all in on 650b with industry partners it would open up the discussion, otherwise it’s still a diminishing option.
There’s also lower industry support. How many aero rims or off-the-shelf race wheelsets are available? To say nothing of the fact that there’s only a handful of tires that are worthwhile. The best Thunder Burt was out of production and unavailable for 18 months before COVID. The 650b Big One was discontinued before the gravel boom. Then there’s the Race King, Schwalbe RR/RR, and what else?
Although some of us have been riding the wheelsize and tires for a while. I go back and forth if they’re slower, faster, or the same (650bx2.1 vs. 700cx42/47) but I know for sure they don’t feel as fast. It’s always harder at the very end when I’m near cracking to stay with the pack on 650b vs. 700c - especially if this happens on pavement or smooth gravel. Mental setback, rotation inertia, whatever it is I’ve always felt it even when I was totally enamored with the wheelsize.
How much consumer demand (from gravel/racers) was there for Thunder Burts and Race Kings before 2023/2024?
Almost 0.
There are around 200 different 650b gravel tires in the market, there’s consumer demand but there’s not much racing demand.
Racers are driven by what other racers are doing. If Keegan Swenson did every race on 650b next year demand would explode. Faster acceleration! Better maneuverability! Lighter wheels and tires! More durable wheels! Practically sells itself…
What are the dominant gravel bike brands? Has Santa Cruz moved up, down, or stayed the same in this ranking?
How many racers are using a suspension fork over prior years? I do have some data on this, as far as I can tell it’s a fairly significant number. The Southeast Gravel Series went from 1-2 suspension forks at a given event in 2021/2022 to 10+ this year. And this is a small local series with around 300 racers a year with maybe 700-800 racer days.
We know XC tires are now significantly more in demand for gravel racing. So, is your assertion that youtube, podcasts, with race results from the feature star - does not contribute to, and at times totally, drive consumer demand?
I have been using Racing Rays/Racing Ralphs on my commuter for nearly two years and they last several thousand km on asphalt. I do about 160–200 km/week on them and they last for about one year. I have also ridden them offroad quite a bit and they are great. If you need more bite, mount a Nobby Nic on the front wheel.
In fact, I have been thinking about getting tires that are more optimized for road riding next, but longevity is something that I have been focussing on:
The tread on the Vittoria Terrenos that are on my wife’s commuter haven’t lasted for 500 km. (She doesn’t ride that much.)
I have heard Schwalbe’s G-One RS similarly don’t last very well, even though that are among the fastest gravel tires out there. Bicycle RR gave them very high marks.
Schwalbe G-One Speed are another option, but again, I don’t know how long those knobs last.
Schwalbe G-One Allround might last longer.
Thunderburts have also been mentioned to not last very long on pavement, so I guess those are also not an option. But at a certain point, I am just back at the Racing Ray/Racing Ralph combo.
The tire in that gap is the Terra Hardpack 50mm. Tested equal to a 2.1" Thunder Burt on BRR, and measures exactly 50mm on my 24iw rims. In addition they cost like 25€. I honestly think if this tire was Black Chili compound, cost 3 times as much and performed exactly the same in the test, it would be very popular.
That said, the 2.1" Thunder Burt is really also a 50mm tire. They measure 51mm on my 24iw rims. The Cinturato H 50 mentioned above is just as big as the Burt. I’ll be using the Burts for racing and the Hardpacks for commuting.
Regarding the 650 B/27.5 for a gravel bike, I just learned that the gravel series leader in our local series runs 27.5. This dude is super fast and is competing for the win each race. I’m not sure if he’d be faster on 29ers, but anecdotally the 27.5 certainly doesn’t appear to be holding him back.
Ok, challenge accepted. I just put two of them in my shopping cart for 25 € each. Even if they don’t last as long, they seem cheap enough to take a gamble on.
Good stuff. I’ve put 2k km on mine, maybe 70% pavement 30% gravel. The front tire looks basically new, the rear has a little bit of wear and two plugs in it, one from a sharp rock and one from me being dumb bottoming out on a curb - definitely no fault of the tire. It’s a semi-slick so there are no knobs to wear out.
I think their weakness is cornering rather than durability. Consider a Burt on the front if that’s an issue.
2.2 Fast Traks juuust barely fit in the Crux fork, but the hairs rub the fork side. I’ll trim the side knobs, install some helicopter tape and roll with it and 47mm in the back.
And Rudy has become quite useless for the XC tire hype. 2.2 in it looks quite laughable. Keegan and Tobin ran this fork last year for a few races, but to someone’s point above just because the main dude runs something - that’s not enough to get it viral. You need others to want to do it. And MTB tires - lots of people get behind it, cause it makes sense. Tobin ran an MTB tire before DJ last year, no one noticed and it probably messed up his Stig frame. Now they’re all on 2.2’s.
This made me think about Nino Schurter and how he switched from 27.5 to 29ers after losing the Olympics on them. The only data is that he went on to revenge his loss and dominate the next few years running them.
All the pics of these tires with the hairs is giving me big time flashbacks to my early days in Product Development and having to build up bikes for the photo shoots.
We would have to trim all those little hairs off bike tires by hand…we tried everything to get a more efficient way to do it, but the best option was little wire clippers that we found at Radio Shack.
We called it “Nubbing”, as in trimming all the nubs off the tires. Every single hair on every single tire, clipped by hand…and we usually shot dozens of bikes. It took HOURS!!
Yes, it makes sense now, but it didn’t until one of the major gravel youtubers spent hours discussing XC tires in multiple videos and podcasts, and showed real world results.
Thunder Burts and Race Kings have been known to be two of the fastest tires for almost a decade, and when BRR started testing gravel tires it was obvious they were faster than many of them. I (and others) tried both TBs and RK for gravel 7-8 years ago.
My statement wasn’t “everyone is going to do it because Keegan did it” - my statement was that demand would explode - which we have seen with XC tires and the Lauf fork, among other trends. Demand for XC tires to use on gravel racing bikes was basically 0 until recently. Now it’s probably 10% of the total USA gravel racing population is either interested in buying them soon or is already using them. Thousands of customers demanding product where just 1-2 years prior there was 0, or perhaps a few dozen.
A similar situation would occur with 650b wheels, if the most successful gravel racer started using them and winning? Of course demand would increase. This isn’t an unreasonable or unexpected event to forecast.
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