On May 16, 2011, at 7:19 AM, Steve Palincsar wrote: > On Sun, 2011-05-15 at 21:44 -0600, PATRICK MOORE wrote: > >> But how do the Paris-Roubaix and the GB do on firm dirt and gravel? > > I was on one dirt road ride last year where a friend had 28mm > Paris-Roubaix tires. She flatted almost immediately as soon as we got > on the gravel, and then flatted again later on. > > I've had the 30mm Grand Bois Cypres on gravel roads for a few miles and > they're ridden fine, but I wasn't on the gravel long enough to draw any > conclusions about durability in that environment. > > Simply because of their relative narrowness (compared to the 650B tires > I have on other bikes) I wouldn't set out with them to do a dirt road > ride, but if I encountered a stretch of dirt road in the middle of a > long ride I wouldn't blanch or (as I've seen folks on 23mm racing tires > do) shriek "Gravel, for the love of God!!!" come to a sudden halt, stop > and carry the bike over the offending gravel section.
Strange to me. I've ridden many miles on 23 mm tires of gravel. Unless the gravel is loose it's not a problem. But then I grew up doing a lot of riding on gravel; I just keep going because it doesn't feel funny to me. It's probably like the Belgians and cobbles- just what you're used to. My grandparents lived on a farm in Michigan surrounded by gravel roads. There are a bunch of gravel road enthusiasts around the Twin Cities, have their own mailing list and (appropriately enough) loosely organized rides. I haven't gotten out to any of those, having previously had a lot of schedule conflicts on the weekends. I've noticed that gravel used on roads is much larger than it used to be; when I was a kid gravel on roads tended to be fine grained (1/4" or smaller) and "locked down" pretty quickly but nowadays gravel seems to be 1/2" to 1" as a general rule. The bigger gravel is less stable under a wheel. Given the politics that erupt around gravel mining locally, it is possible that- like oil- we've used up a lot of the higher quality easily accessible resources. IME coarser gravel needs bigger tires to avoid plowing through it and bogging down. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
