carlos danger

theres plenty of space there.

gettingold

Have the same frame/fork. How do you like those tires? Any thoughts on durability yet?

SethAZ 

I've only got 83 miles on the tires so far, so durability has yet to be determined. I'm about to get up from my desk and go do 15 or 20 more. They still look new, naturally. No flats or anything like that. I used Vittoria latex tubes designed for 25-32mm tires. That combination feels phenomenal. So far from one day to the next I'll have to add 5-10psi of air back in due to leakage through the latex tubes, but that's just a little more than I had to add each day with butyl tubes to keep them at the same pressure for each ride.

It's actually hard to describe. At first I thought maybe they felt lifeless and dead because I wasn't feeling anything (or very much) from the tires. The more I rode and paid attention to the feel, however, the more I realized that I was mistaking vibration feedback up from the road surface as a lively feel. These tires absorb so much vibration that I don't get that constant feedback from every little bump or surface texture in the road. The feeling of being connected to the road, the confidence, traction, ability to turn aggressively, maneuverability, etc. is all still there. It's just a much smoother, quieter ride.

There's a 3/4 mile section of absolutely atrocious road surface that is part of several of my routes. It's horrible. It's been badly resurfaced in the past, it has major cracks and ridges in it, etc. With my old bike I had to slow down for a few hundred meters of that road because there were these cracks that were like 1-3" wide. On my old bike I'd have to slow down a lot, get up off my saddle to unweight the bike as I rode over the major cracks, and look for and aim to cross over the narrowest sections of each crack. And even then the larger cracks had such a jarring impact that I often feared I'd pop a spoke or worse. With the Lynskey and these 32mm tires, latex tubes, lower pressure (83-85psi rear and 70psi front is what I'm now running) I now just ride full speed down this entire stretch of road, including over those huge cracks. The narrower 1" cracks just register as a mildish bump now, and only the 2-3" cracks really jostle me at all, and even then the impact is more subdued, not as jarring, and I don't fear that anything will pop or break. The vibration and jostling from riding over that very poor rode surface, aside from the major cracks, feels reduced by at least 80% or so. I still feel something on it as compared to a really good road surface, it's just greatly subdued.

Keep in mind I'm a very heavy rider, currently at around 285 or so (and dropping). If you are of a more conventional cyclist weight you could run these tires at significantly lower pressures and probably experience even less vibration and jostling through the tires. Compass has a 35mm version of this tires that's tubeless compatible, and I'll probably try those after these wear out. I've run tubeless before on smaller tires that fit my old bike, and they felt much better. I can't imagine how nice the 35mm Compass tubeless should feel.

79pmooney

You can get a ti bike with the clearances you need, the brakes you want and anything else from TiCycles. It will cost you and you will have to wait but it can be done.

If you are finding what's out there not what you really want, go to their website or call them. https://www.ticycles.com/. I have two that are completely custom fit and with details you won't find elsewhere.

Edit: and they can build you a (very nice) steel fork that will do anything you want so you are not limited to the CF choices. (Or a super light, super stiff ti fork that can handle any tire ever made.)

Ben

gettingold

Cant imagine I will ever need more clearance than the Lynskey gives me, as indicated in Seth's pictures. Definitely not looking for a rock hopper, just a smooth comfortable ride and maybe a few trips on the tow path with my wife or daughter.

gettingold

Seth, could we get a side shot of the bike so we see how it looks with gum wall wheels? I grew up with gum walls and like the look of solid black better.

SethAZ 

Yeah, I put this up in the other Lynskey thread before, but it's probably sunk down off the first page by now. Here it is again.

Btw, tomorrow I'm going to swap over my 3T Ergonova Pro handlebar onto this bike. For that I ordered some new Fizik padded bar tape. I decided to violate the Ti/black color scheme of the bike and ordered the red tape. So this will look a little different tomorrow but that's ok: there are plenty of ti/black color scheme Lynskeys floating around. Red is my favorite color, and who cares what it matches.

gettingold

This is outrageous. An emergency meeting of the black accented Lynskey Ti Riders Association will be called.

Jay H.

I don't know why bigger tires are such a fad other than professional racers using them. More tire takes more to push. I love my 24 and 25's and ride a mountain bike in wet weather or a fitness bike in the middle. Nothing moves like a light weight 135lb road tire, punctures and all. I am a light rider and interested in more avid opinions. Thanks and happy rolling.

HTupolev

Fad? Go back a few decades, and road bikes with 28mm and 32mm tires were a fairly normal thing.

More tire doesn't necessarily take more to push.
Assuming a wide tire and narrow tire are otherwise constructed similarly, the wider tire will add a bit of weight and possibly air drag. But, it enjoys more favorable rolling characteristics, especially when low inflation pressure is desired.
On smooth surfaces, the overall effects of tire width are small enough to be difficult to measure. The rougher the surface, the squishier a tire needs to be pumped to roll smoothly over it, and the more advantaged high width can become. The pros use tires like 28s in races like Paris-Roubaix because there are critical moments in those races where wide tires take tangibly less power to push.

Do you mean that you ride a mountain bike for road riding when it's wet?

Riding a mountain bike on the road isn't a good gauge of the effects of tire width. Mountain bikes are usually somewhat sluggish on the road even if you install fast road tires: for instance, it's harder to hold a nicely aerodynamic posture on a mountain bike than a road bike. Also, while MTB tires do tend to be slow on the road, their knobbies and beefy construction tend to be more responsible for this than their width.

shelbyfv

Welcome Jay!

Sy Reene

2003 Merlin Cyrene.. no way it would take 28s (Ouzo Pro fork). As mentioned somewhere above, even if I could fit 28s, I'd have to deflate the tire every time I need to get it past the caliper brakes (or remove a pad) to remove a wheel.