2021 Soma Grand Randonneur - Anyone buy or ride?

[randal...@gmail.com]

Near as I can tell it's been 3 months since the updated Soma Grand Randonneur was released. Has anyone purchased one? Or even ridden one? I haven't been able to find a single social media post about the bike, other than discussion when it was first announced. I can't even find a picture of the bike built up, anywhere.

The first iterations had some fan fare IIRC. The past couple years it seems like niche interested parties have pivoted away from 650b road to other things like gravel and bikepacking. Which makes me  suspect we're on the downswing of the whole French rando-style bike trend. IMO 650b road is certainly dead, the industry standard 47/48mm minimum tire width pretty much killed it. 38/42mm was workable for road bike replacement, the larger size was not. 650b gravel is fading quickly, if it ever really had it's moment.

Which makes me wonder where 650b goes in the future. It sure seems like it's taking a similar path as 27.5 - slowly declining into the background as tires and geometry for demi and balloon 700c has advanced past what the smaller wheelsize can achieve.  Will we be seeing more production low-trail stuff in the future if this is the reception of a more modern iteration of the geometry, during a boom time? Does Bicycle Quarterly still write about road/rando style 650b bikes with slicks?

-Randy Daniels

Atlanta, GA

[S.Fuller]

My guess is that there haven't been many shipped, and if they have, they've gone to paying customers vs being loaner bikes for people to review. I have one 650b bike in my stable (which was a conversion). I like it for the use I built it for which was a light tourer / day ride bike. It goes from point A to point B fine, but at the end of the day, it's not much different than riding any of my other 700c rides. I have enough 700c bikes that clear a 35-42c tire that I don't really have a need for another 650b bike in the stable. I haven't ridden a proper low trail 650b bike yet, so maybe that would change my mind some?

Steve

Central IA

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Steve Fuller
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[Brad]

As to low trail bikes [my current choice] [in riding derailleur drop bar bikes since 1969 I have been able to test out some options]  they do a few things well.  One is handle low speed since they can steer without leaning.   Combined with 650B they keep frame sizes in the same range as with a 700c bike.   Getting handlebars parallel with the seat is much easier in this range than it is with most 700C set ups.  Low trail also helps if you use either a front bag, or a front rack with stuff on it regularly.  The low trail (or more properly understood low flop) means you can use less muscle to bring the bars back to level if they turn and they always turn as we ride.   One way to compare the two set ups is to watch the wheel flop as someone approaches on the bike.   You will see the difference.      That being said, like with shoes and handlebars finding something that fits you and your riding style is the most important. 

[randal...@gmail.com]

I have a low-trail bike and have ridden the GR V1 as well as the Masi low-trail model. Mostly curious to see how the GR V3 builds out as a complete bike and input from actual riders. The GR V1/V2 had a lot of content generated by independent users but I suppose that era of blogs and forum posting is much less than it was back when they were released.  The thread that got me interested in a low-trail bike over at V-salon is more than 8 years old now! 

[randal...@gmail.com]

I started with conversions as well to get bigger tires before demi-balloon 700c frame were common, going to 650b low-trail was a big change but only because I also went to a front rack and bag. If one doesn't plan to ride with a front load, low-trail doesn't really have much to offer, IMO. The only place it really shines is flat, muddy riding with knobbies - the low-flop means you can pedal to hard while steering aggressively with almost no side slip - an unusual and not very useful specific use case. 

On Friday, July 9, 2021 at 9:24:13 AM UTC-4 steve...@gmail.com wrote:

[Andy G]

On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 9:04 AM randal...@gmail.com <randal...@gmail.com> wrote:

IMO 650b road is certainly dead, the industry standard 47/48mm minimum tire width pretty much killed it.

I have/had a Rawland Stag (42 with fenders), rSogn (dunno, but clears much wider) and cSogn (66mm under fenders), so it's not the frame that's the issue. I love these bikes because they fit like a road bike but can handle way more tire. The retrogrouch in me will not be happy if I have to buy a disc brake, thru axle, "gravel" bike! just to be able to ride some mixed terrain.

[mikemc...@gmail.com]

Interesting to hear this thesis after reading how 29+ is dying over at bikepacking dot com.  So 27.5 disc rims shouldn't be going anywhere given that downhill bikes and plus tire bikes are firmly entrenched in that rim diameter. It's no secret that rim-brake 650b rims that are tubeless ready are not common anymore and in many parts of the world, they are tough (& expensive) to find (pandemic shortages aside). So that's a turn-off just like hard-to-find chainrings as they are wear items. Personally, I feel that 47-48mm tires shouldn't be on <23mm (internal width) rims nor run with tubes if they are taking proper advantage of the what a tire larger than a 42 can offer. Along the same lines, my experience with a 435mm chainstay bike tells me that the added stability for descents on lumpy roads is needed to make the whole bike make sense. So if you need more tire than a 42 because of rough terrain, don't stuff a 420mm chainstay in there because you'll reach a speed limit for reasonable handling due to rear-centre etc.

So if you can get a 650bx48 bike with matching chainstays & rims, it's going to be a disc bike. If it is disc, my 2c is that it should be thru axle (and 1 1/8 steerer tube or larger). This is so you can readily find hubs (be it the customer or person spec'ing the production bike such as the GR). 

Why 650x48 low trail disc vs 700x48 high trail disc bike? You like full fenders and hate toe overlap; value acceleration, and do enough bikepacking that handling front loads w/o tired upper body is a priority; or you're under 5'5". The person who wants to prioritize timed gravel events and is medium height or taller is seemingly going 700c the vast majority of the time. 

Where does this leave the 650b French all road bike with its 1" threaded steerer, centre pull brakes et al? It will stay as a custom-only option and require planning/hoarding of rims, ReneHerse/BQ team to continue to prosper (w/o them, this would be very different convo) and likely is best confined to 42b tires. Jan does this on his PBP bikes, and I think it makes sense like that as a complete all road bike concept.  

[Andrew Demack]

Yes 650B rando/road won't ever be the mainstream ... but I don't think anyone really ever thought it would be.

Pandemic-related supply issues aside, I think this is a golden age of choice for bike riders, especially to do with the variety of tyres and tyres sizes, available online and in local bike shops. The breadth of what's being made is amazing.

And as for "650b gravel is fading quickly" ... well around here the favourite gravel bike is the Norco Search, which comes standard in 650B in smaller sizes. And a friend of mine who bought a new Vitus gravel bike from a large online retailer, XL size, found it came with 650B out of the box. So 650B seems to be alive in well for gravel bikes around here.

--Andrew in Brisbane, who recently removed the mudguards on my 650B rando-tourer so as to jam 47-584 Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres in there for an upcoming dirt road tour.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0J1Fe0dUiToru2_eN_OArpyhQ

[satanas]

IMO, anything non-disc (that doesn't come from K Mart or similar) is an endangered species, whether it's a MTB, gravel bike, road bike, etc. Rim brakes are increasingly becoming a niche item on decent bikes.

As for tyres, I think what we're seeing with MTB widths is consolidation. 2.2"/55mm is now a narrow tyre, while wider than 2.6"/65mm is also becoming rarer. This may in part be due to COVID-related manufacturing difficulties. Normally Schwalbe's catalogs appear in August, so it will be interesting to see what happens this year. Last year quite a few 650b tyres got deleted, including narrower knobbies and a number of widths and models in G-Ones. :-(

700c/29" tyre development seems to be continuing apace though...

Later,

Stephen

[Ryan Stanis]

I've been lamenting the death of 27.5+ (3.0 tires) recently, I found these to be the best combination of rolling speed and traction here in the Philadelphia area. A great combination of roll over capability and fast acceleration in comparison to the 29x2.2 bike I was riding before.  As for the new Grand Rando model, we got a few in at our shop that we plan to build up in the not too distant future! I'll share some photos to the group once we have them.

-Ryan

Keystone Bicycle Co. Philly, PA

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