On longer rides I change inflation for sections with different surfaces, speeds or handing challenges best addressed by such. I have a full size Zefal HPX under the top tube, on the head tube pump peg, of my 700x32 (tubes) Rambouillet and a Lezyne Road modified for the peg and dropout nub on my left rear seat stay on my 650Bx42 (tubeless) Coast rando. I find both pretty handy for a fast stop to add air.
I'm in the camp of adjusting until it feels right, a gauge reading being a number to start with instead of gospel. If I get lateral sidewall flex when pedaling through a paved turn, I add. If I'm being battered by feeling each piece of aggregate in course pavement or gravel I let some out. Conversely, particularly with the Rambouillet, I grudgingly add air when I sense the potential for rim pinching under a particular load. On both bikes I'm riding RH tires and have found them rewarding to my perceptions of fine tuning tire pressures. It's ultimately what motivated me to go low trail, front loading, when pumping up the Rambouillet's rear tire above my normal PSI if carrying stuff for overnight or longer because it made harder riding than when unloaded and is a noticeable source of fatigue on long rides. That's when stopping to optimize inflation is not a waste of riding time but rather an investment in reaping the best rewards i can from my bike and the duration of the ride. I've had to work up to to a century ride on the Ram in any season where the bigger tired and wider tolerance of inflation pressures Coast enabled me to ride such distances much more easily and without feeling as worn out afterward. Andy Cheatham Pittsburgh On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 12:53:13 AM UTC-4 ack...@gmail.com wrote: > The Road-ish Riv Rubber Radius thread got me thinking about PSI > adjustments while on longer rides. Last month I rode my 56cm 650b Atlantis > from San Francisco to Olema via Mt. Tam and the Bolinas Ridge Fire Trail > (which was about 13 miles and our main gravel section of the day) and back > to SF via Samuel P. Taylor and Fairfax. A glorious 75 mile-ride (80% > road/20%gravel) with 6000 ft of climbing on a perfectly sunny, temperate > day. We stopped at Pantoll Station midway to the top of Mt. Tam and made > coffee and had some decadent pastries and smoked salmon. Everything was > perfect.....except for one five mile stretch at the end of the Bolinas > Ridge Fire Trail. A "relentless descent" characterized by obstinate cows, > hard-packed dirt that could only be described as rutted washboard, and lots > of time spent death-gripping my TRP brake levers on my newly mounted 666mm > Crust Towel Rack bars. Once past this stretch, the ride returned to its' > earlier glory and we headed home through idyllic Marin County. A great day > of mixed-terrain riding. In retrospect, though, I can't help but think > that I could have avoided the unpleasantness of that 5-mile descent had I > just thought to lower my PSI before getting on the fire trail. Being that > the first half of the ride and the final 35% of the ride would be on the > road, I started (and finished) my day out at 42 PSI on my 48mm Rene Herse > Switchback Hill Endurance tires. Now I'm kicking myself for not lowering > the pressure significantly. And I figured that this would be a good place > to ask for others' experience with mid-ride PSI changes. Is this something > that folks do regularly or are y'all more inclined to choose a PSI that > will work on mixed terrain? And if frequent PSI changes are the norm, what > pumps are your favorites? Since most (?) Riv-Riders seem to be almost > obsessed with bags as they are with their bikes (I rode with my Fabios > Chest L on this particular day) I figure that pump size is not as important > as pump efficiency. > Thanks for your consideration. > Alex > -- 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/44407413-fa79-498f-9208-3df9a6e14714n%40googlegroups.com.
