ISO 700c tires and/or recommendations

[James Fune]

Hello and Happy Holidays RBWs,

(Crossposted with BOBs) I recently picked up an old Trek 750 Multitrack and revamped it with some fun parts bin goodies. The only tires I had were a pair of gravelking ext+ in 700 x 33mm so I threw them on. To my disappointment, they lacked any bit of livelihood on pavement. For reference, my Homer wears a set of Babyshoe Passes from Rene Herse and I feel like they float right over road. I also had Naches Passes (endurance casing) on my MB-1 at one point and those were arguably the nicest tires I've used! Both durable and fast-rolling. On local trails, the GKs are just OK but nothing to write home about. Perhaps it could be that I'm still running tubes, or that my old rims are too narrow. All this to say I'm looking for recommendations! 

To specify: I am leaning towards 35-40mm clinchers. My rides are 80% tarmac/20% trail. I feel I am still itching for that sparkle on the Naches Passes.... I would be curious to hear what others have to say about Rene Herse/compass in the width range I am seeking or any other go-to tires in general.

Lastly, if you do happen to have tires for sale, please shoot me a message. I would love to discuss potentially purchasing!

Thanks for reading,

James, Richmond VA

[Andrew Turner]

Switching to TPU tubes (even the cheap ones on eBay work great) made a huge difference in tire performance for me. Right now I’m on a bit of a Challenge kick, running 36mm Strada Bianca slicks with TPU tubes, and they feel incredible — though those tires definitely live up to their name. It took several months of riding them with butyl tubes just to get the casings molded into a more traditional clincher shape before I could even attempt TPU. Mounting Challenge tires new is already a battle, and adding slippery TPU tubes easily made it ten times harder.

That said, TPU tubes paired with GravelKing slicks was also an amazing combo. The ride felt very similar to Rene Herse tires run tubeless — super zippy and just plain fun. I’ve actually got a lightly used pair of 35mm GK slicks with brown sidewalls I’d let go for around $45, shipped, if you’re interested. 

Cheers, 
Andrew Turner

[Patrick Moore]

Andrew: My own perception too, as I just posted over on the iBoblist, and I’m glad to see that I’m not just hallucinating. Now that I’ve jumped into the TPU sea with RH tubes (I chose RH with price to eliminate the tedium of slowly eliminating potential sources of the problems reported by many with no-name TPUs), I’m ready to try some of the recommended eBay and Ali Express makes — tho’ this source is limited for me to 700C, as they don’t seem to sell TPUs to fit 27 mm or 42 mm 26” tires.

To be perfectly clear: The gossamer Elk Passes “felt” smoother and faster with RH 30-48 mm TPUs than with ultralight butyls. 

But I can’t say I noticed the same improvement with the extralight Naches Passes. I rode the NPs tubeless; with el butyls; and now with the same 30-48 mm RH TPUs; all with ~the same amounts of Orange Seal. I think that the NPs “feel” the same with all 3 arrangements. For the record and FWIW, I also rode the same bike with Elks and Nacheses, and yes, that bike ridden with the Elks seemed “faster” (it was very certainly more agile) than with the Nacheses, while *I think” that the bike with Nacheses feels much the same with the Nacheses tubeless, with light butyl, and now with the TPUs. 

I’ve only ridden the Roadeo with extralight Stamped Passes and TPU tubes, and it feels heavenly, but I’ve not ridden it with any other tire nor tube.

PS: For a truly horrible riding experience: use a very heavy, very thick sidewall tire with a 2 lb “thornproof” tube and with a tire liner and 4 fl oz of Slime pumped from a bulk gallon jug.

This was a “system” to deal with goatheads, and it does work. But man! You have to pump this “system” to at least 35 psi, and accept the concrete ride; lower and it feels like riding in cold glue.

One more FWIW: I rode Naches Pass extralights tubeless, with lightest-weight butyl, and with TPU tubes on the same bike, all with OS reguar, and it seems to me in retrospect that I did not notice a huge difference in “cushion” or “ease of rolling” among light butyl, tubeless, and TPU. I did notice, or think I noticed, a positive difference between the superlatively smooth and fast Elk Pass (27 mm actual 13 mm IW rims) with ultralight butyls and RH 30-48 mm TPUs.

FWIW, getting 30-48 mm TPUs into 27 mm actual Elk Passes wasn’t that hard; and the instructions on the RH site showing a method slightly more efficacious than my own seat-of-pants method make things even easier.

the difference between TPUs and both tubeless and lightest butyl is more noticeable than that between tubeless and lightest butyl. But perhaps retrospect is clouded by the 5 years since I tried the NPs tubeless. (I gave up b/c my rims were not tubeless-designed and it all depended on thick rim tape.)