I haven’t used Patreon before and couldn’t find where I can go to make a 1 time donation. Is this an option, and if so, could you steer in the right direction?
Alternatively, if you have PayPal, would be happy to send some $ through there as well.
I believe that they’ve been using 170 TPI casings like these, which are now available to us all. 
To get a proper grasp why the US uses such an odd mix of units and measure, look no further -
16 Likes
I busted out laughing at this.
At the same time I have to add that “those that put a man on the moon” did it in spite of our convoluted measurement systems, not necessarily because of them… 
5 Likes
If you want to get really pedantic, they used the metric system to put the men on the moon…
But sometimes it is OK just to laugh at the joke simply because it is funny. 
5 Likes
Seeing the 3 new Schwalbe 50’s compared side by side on BRR, I think the g-one r-pro looks to be the best middle ground for weight, rolling resistance, and puncture resistance. Pure rolling resistance and weight, the rs-pro appears to be the top dog. Granted, these are all in the 40mm width.
I have a customer with a set of 303s with I the new RS Pro 45 I could borrow.
As of today, just finished terreno dry 2.1 from the recent CN article… Corsa Pro Controls in a 34 mounted for easy gravel track testing next.
EDIT: Also soon.. 29 x 2.2 test round. Need some tires if anyone can help.
7 Likes
Specialized Epic:
1 Like
Wrong thread… see here:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/drop-bar-mtb-geo/87495/234
I am aware of that thread too. My point was that Specialized has a new fully built gravel bike coming that can take mtb tyres.
No… Specialized sells a hard tail mountain bike, which many of us have put a rigid fork and drop bars on…
1 Like
We don’t know yet that it is a dedicated gravel bike, though, do we? You could interpret “Frankie” to mean it is a “Frankenstein” bike…i.e. a drop-bar epic hardtail.
1 Like
We know for certain that it’s absolutely nothing new… It’s a wannabe Instagram influencer with zero affiliation with Specialized who put together a bike. To my eye it looks like the 430mm Curve rigid fork(too short imho), in his attempt to get a shorter axle to crown, similar to what I did.
Specialized has a new gravel bike coming, an update to the Diverge… This ain’t it.
4 Likes
A little off topic for this thread, but how much faster is a drop bar on a hardtail anyways? When I ride mine on gravel, I just hold my bars a bit narrower than I would on singletrack and it already feels very fast. I’ve always kind of liked the idea of putting dropbars on my hardtail as I usually ride it to the trails, but I always then tell myself it would be silly to gain just a little bit more speed on the road at the expense of fun on the trail.
My riding position is not just more narrow but also lower in the front and I have my saddle all the way forward. That changes the bikes characteristics quite a bit. I will probably reduce the travel of my fork to 80mm to have less trail, steeper head and seat angle and lower bb and an even higher bardrop. Will that make the bike faster? Depends on what you plan to ride.
1 Like
Interesting… I personally try to have my saddle exactly the same between my cyclocross bike and hardtail so that would be a non-factor. The front end height is an interesting point though. With the hardtail, the front of the bike is significantly higher than the cyclocross bike which is certainly doing something negative in the aero department I would think. I guess, this is where these new breed of gravel bikes with big tire clearance comes in. I feel like reducing the travel on my mtb would just totally wreck the geometry, it’s already so twitchy, it would be borderline uncontrollable with steeper angles.
I think the one thing that really bothers me when it comes to riding the mountain bike on gravel is really just when I’m in a group of other riders. I have how with my flat bars I feel like I’m going to end up underneath or tangled up with the guy who I’m riding next too. When I’m on my cyclocross bike, I feel like I can kind of bump shoulders with folks without risk of our bars becoming tangled up.
Did you mount just the front or front and rear?
Both…it is really tight in the rear. If I get out of the saddle and accelerate hard and really work the bike, I can get some frame run on the non-drive side. But since I never actually ride like that, I’m running them for now.
Have a race this weekend and I’m waiting to see what conditions will be like before making the final decision….it may be a little wet.
1 Like
I agree with the desire for a bit steeper head tube angle and lower front end, which was why I went with a 455mm a-c fork on my drop bar Epic build. You are incorrect in your spec though, the Epic HT has a head tube angle of 68.5d with 100mm fork(~500mm a-c). The fork I spec’d resulted in a 70.9 degree head tube angle, which some would argue was already a bit too steep, but I found totally fine. A 430mm fork would put it around 72d, which is as steep as many road bikes on the market.
1 Like
Kinda interesting (and quite fast) addition to the Cat1/easy gravel results:
for a quick summary, this is the fastest tire so far on the easy gravel above 18 mph… below that speed It is the good old Thunder Burt 2.1.
2 Likes