I ride off-road plenty with my Roadini, but what I'm thinking about is a little different.
Leo's main wheels have 43mm GKSS. These are great on multi-surface rides including pavement, rail trails, and small sections of dirt/gravel trails where I take it easy on the corners. I have a trail system in town, mainly gravel, built through small forests connecting a lot of neighbourhoods with a creek being the constant. The trails are up and down (steep as 19%); twisty, with some sharp, off-camber turns; sometimes the gravel is loose, and there are little ruts after rain storms. It's as fun as MTB'ing on singletrack. I ride a Salsa Fargo with 2.2" tubeless gravel tires on these trails. I can fly through the 'course', however, that bike is about half as comfortable as Leo. Like a cat, Leo is light and nimble, playful, but if you push her, she's not happy. My Fargo is more like a dire wolf, butting sitting upon him, I'm just not comfy. And who doesn't want to be comfy. So I'm thinking of outfitting Leo with some aggressive tread 45mm tires; lots of knobs, supple, confidence inspiring. I would then take her end to end on my local trails and see how she compares to the Fargo. Less volume may hurt, but maybe I can make up for that with work on my skills? Alternatively, I give occasional thought to buying a Hillborne. I want drop bars, I want as similar to Leo as I can get, I like the idea of fenders with some narrow tires (maybe) on one wheel set, with another maybe going up to 48mm. I'm just now sure it's worth it. But if I can get it as comfortable as Leo, then I can dedicate Sam to the trails, shoulder season (roads more likely to be wet) with fenders and maybe winter tires. -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/9153de62-13cd-4839-a9f4-d8a4340c02e6n%40googlegroups.com.
