by Igor
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| My personal favorite: Algae |
We also picked up their 26x1.75 Cruise Touring Tire in Brown.
I've been riding the Algae color on my road bike since we brought them in and my ride is much more comfortable, even at high pressures. The casing is supple and light. The herringbone tread turns pavement into rails. And the color makes bystanders swoon.
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11 comments:
Noticed that none of the fairweather tires are listed as having puncture protection…and the weight is subsequently feathery. Any thoughts on this approach? Ride quality trumps puncture resistance?
First we need to define why you get flats. The vast majority of flats is caused by the tread picking up a piece of debris and working its way deeper and deeper as the tire rolls until you flat. The other type of flat is rolling over a nail or something and nothing short of solid rubber tires will prevent a flat.
In my opinion, there are 2 approaches for flat prevention and ride quality.
1) Ride the hardest, most puncture resistant tread possible. Your tires will last longer because there is physically more tread. Your wheels will be heavier. Your ride quality/comfort will suffer with how stiff the sidewalls are. Cornering will not be as good because the sidewall doesn't flex. The upside is debris probably won't make it through to the tube as the tread is so thick, and in addition there is probably a kevlar belt.
2) Ride lightweight, supple sidewall tires. They typically don't last as long as hardcore "touring" tires, but they have a noticeably more comfortable ride. The cornering is better. Your wheels are lighter. Instead of picking up debris, the tire conforms to the hazard and rolls over it, never picking it up.
I've ridden both super lightweight tires and touring tires and have not noticed any increase at all in flat tires with lightweight tires.
-Igor
@Alex,
FWIW, over the past couple of years I've been riding more supple tires without puncture resistance(GB Hetres, GB Cypres, Pari-Motos), never gotten a flat...I generally pay attention to my lines. I commute through DC, mostly pothole streets, to dirt gravel, to cobblestone, to tarmac. Also ride through road construction zones daily.
I plan to pick up these Fairweather Travelers, for my 700c bike. Puncture resistance would require a Kevlar lining of some sort, which would probably make the ride feel like a brick. Plus, these seem like the same mold as the GB Cerfs, albeit better colors and more cost effective.
I live in a city that has broken glass on almost every roadlike surface. The only way to avoid riding over broken glass is to carry my bike. I've never ridden 'nice' tires without puncture protection; the only tires without protection I've ridden are 35mm kendas that I've never been able to get more than a week out of before flatting (out of three pairs of tires). This makes me hesitant to drop the kind of money I would otherwise not hesitate to spend on tires with puncture protection, on tires without it. This doesn't mean a better tire sans protection wouldn't work just fine, or even better, I'm just not as likely to buy them.
Thanks Igor and Philip…your experience/explanation/advice is certainly giving me the courage to give these a go. I've always wondered how the likes of Jan Heine and Grant Peterson got away with supple tires sans puncture protection.
I've had the Fairweather Fortraveler tires on my bike for the last year. I ride in Portland where there are crappy streets with plenty of debris and I'm yet to get a flat. I also paid a bit more to import them direct from Japan.
What width do these run on a rim like the Mavic Open Pro?
@Anon 3:31am,
We have mounted them on many rims and they all seem to be very close to 28mm.
I mounted mine on Open Pro's and the average width between the front and rear is a disapppointing 26.5mm. Depth wise they are 25mm, similar to Challenge Parigi Roubaix. The pressures where 80psi rear, 60 psi front. Once I have got a few hundred km's on them I'll re-measure
I finally got to run my Fairweather For Traveler 28 tyres, black tread, this week. I have only done 175km but in that distance they have done everything from smooth hot mix to broken coarse chip bitumen, dirt forestry roads, deep sand and gravel as well as a couple of cattle grids. These rides have also included some steep sealed and unsealed climbs and 80kmh + descents with tight turns. Unfortunately here in South East Queensland, Australia, we experienced our driest October on record so I cannot report on wet weather performance.
http://app.strava.com/activities/213735768
http://app.strava.com/activities/213374070
http://app.strava.com/activities/212992004
Overall I am very impressed. I bought these as a cheaper alternative to Challenge Parigi Roubaix, a tyre I personally have high praise for. The rolling resistance of the Traveler’s feels to be on par with Challenge tyres. They don’t absorb as much road noise but there’s not much in it. The grip is mightily impressive on the steepest of hard packed dirt climbs and the fastest of high speed tight turns. They maintained their grip regardless of the speed, road condition or lean angles. I am a big fan of the classic file pattern for tyre treads, it’s such a useful all round pattern.
After my foray into the local forestry and down the rail trail the tyres have remained cut free and there are no chunks missing, a bit of a weak link for the hand glued Challenge tyres. I like that the tread goes all the way to the shoulders giving the sidewalls some protection from wayward rocks.
Disappointingly they still are a little undersized on the Mavic Open Pro's, measuring 26mm on the front and 27mm at the rear. Pressure was 60 psi in the front and 80 in the rear. This narrow width definitely affected their performance on the sand and in deep gravel, but what can you expect from a narrow tyre intended for road and light trail use. No punctures to report but I don’t seem to get many, and the ones I do get seem to be of a sort that no puncture belt would have stopped it.
I highly recommend these as a great all round tyre I just hope that in the future an exact copy is released in a 32mm width.
What's the TPI for the Traveler tires?
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