Interesting tread... and I am glad so many listmembers enjoy their Compass tires as much as we do. (We developed them for our own bikes, after all.)
I'd like to clarify a few things about the TPI (threads per inch) of the Compass tires. The Extralight models actually use the thinnest casing fibers that Panaracer makes. If packed tightly and measured the "Italian way", these would result in 360 TPI casings. However, by using the same thin fibers, but weaving them a bit looser, you get an even suppler casing, but of course, the TPI is lower. More on the subject is here: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/tpi-and-tire-performance/ There is a lot that goes into making supple tires, and like so many things, it's hard to put that into a single number. It's like "How do you make a great-riding frame?" In the end, you go by experience - if many experienced riders tell you that a certain frame is great, it probably is. The same applies to tires. As a final note, if you want to compare the performance of tires, you have to do it on the same bike. With different bikes, small things like aerodynamics (if your stem is just 20 mm lower, your wind resistance is about 5% lower) or the frame flex characteristics of the frame (what we call "planing") will affect the speeds you can achieve on the road, so even if your measurements are accurate (you need a lot of repeats to reduce the noise in the data), you may not be measuring tire performance. That said, the Challenge tires mentioned by one poster are very nice, too, and in our performance testing, were about equal to the standard Grand Bois/Compass casings. Jan Heine Compass Bicycles Ltd. www.compasscycle.com -- 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 post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
