On Mon, 2011-05-16 at 08:55 -0500, Tim McNamara wrote: > > 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.
Agreed. Also I find that being heavier than most, even 25mm tires are very unsatisfactory for me on gravel roads: they skitter around and feel very unsteady. The wider I go, the more planted the bike feels and the more secure I am. I was very surprised when I switched from CdlVs to Hetres and did the same gravel road descent and found that where I'd initially felt as though I was riding ten tenths at around 12 mph with the CdlVs that with the Hetres I was taking the same descents at 18-20 mph and feeling all laid back and casual. -- 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.
