My, how far we have come since 1997. When Herons were designed, cyclists on
28mm tires were obviously Freds. If you wanted 32’s, you searched out
Campionato del Mondo sewups. It was a battle to get builders to set brake
bridges and fork length to maximize the 57mm reach of “long” brakes. The
pads on the brakes on my prototype Heron are smack dab in the middle of the
slots.
Ironically I had the opposite problem. When I spec'd my custom Ti touring
bike I asked for 57mm because that's what the spec said. It turned out that
if you have exactly 57mm just because of the vagaries of the process you
end up having to file down the brake slots of the "long" reach brakes. To
be safe you really have to design/build the bike to 55mm reach.
It is very amusing that I went from having the widest tire in my touring
club (25mm on single, 28mm on tandem) to having the narrowest tires in my
touring club (28mm on single, 32mm on tandem) over 15 years. On reflection
I think what people don't understand is that rider/bike weight matters a
lot. At 120 pounds and riding a 20 pound bike my wife riding 32mm tires is
like a 180 pound guy riding a 30 pound bike using 40mm tires. My kid at 95
pounds riding a 24 pound bike can run 45psi tires on 28mm tires and easily
rides single track with no traction difficulties. I get people giving me a
hard time for "downgrading" from 32mm tires to 28mm tires, not realizing
that at 160 pounds total bike weight those 28mm tires are equivalent to
their 35mm tires.
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