The whole gdmbr or? If it’s 2/3 paved I’d always rather be on a road-like bike with the smallest tires capable of handling the unpaved sections. This presumes you’d rather be relatively fast and efficient.
i’ve ridden about a third, maybe half of colorado on the expedition. i’d be riding parts of the gdmbr, hopefully the rest of colorado and new mexico. set my sights north to wy and mt laters. my experience with the small bit i’ve ridden before is that it’s 2/3 paved, 1/3 gravel or dirt, no idea if that’s congruent with the rest.
seems inconsistent with course profile listings.
says 90% unpaved
says 25% paved, 75% gravel, 5% “more difficult”
RWGPS somewhat accurate in these breakdowns, but sometimes “paved” means it was paved once and now has decayed into a gravel-like or worse than gravel state.
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Says “3% singletrack”, so even at its worst, I’d still rather underbike than overbike.
i would probably defer to anyone in this group who has done multi-day off road/gravel touring type rides, which does not include myself. i cannot imagine wanting to do multi-day stuff on bumpy roads with less than a 2" tire. doing one fast gravel ride underbiked is one thing - riding day after day carrying gear is another…
my peripheral view from seeing blogs/social media posts/etc is that nearly everyone rides a rigid mtb or hard tail on these routes. even the drop bar folks have 2"+ tires most of the time. so staying in line with that seems to fall in line with common sense. in biek’s case, going with the mariachi and some faster rolling tires seems like the logical choice.
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Just cuz it isn’t single track doesn’t mean it is gonna be a road. Under biking over multiple days really sucks. You have a lot of time to think about the bad choices you’ve made.
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I agree. Even an overnighted with a load on gravel on 33s is not for everyone and is slow. In fact, I’d argue 40mm+ is faster even on good gravel
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I’ve ridden quite a few miles on cyclone mk2s, designed in early 80s and don’t have the tab. Only difference is installing chains is easier. No difference while riding.
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I rode the whole section from Banff to Missoula a few years ago with UltraRonald and the other Nutmeg folks.
This part of the route is much more dirt than you describe- I’d say the 80-90% gravel estimate is realistic (EDIT: as a function of riding time, not mileage.) Other sections are definitely far less paved than what you rode. Like, there’s a couple fair clips on pavement but also some very remote and washed-out/unmaintained gravel roads, and these become a lot more fun/less mental effort with more tire. I was on 27.5x3” which was definitely overbiking for all of it, BUT there were some 8-mile long descents where I just let it rip and had a great time, waiting at the bottom for 30 minutes to an hour for everyone else to catch up.
The optimal tire for the whole route really depends entirely on time of year and conditions. Some sections (NM, parts of WY and northern CO) can become completely impassable by anything less than 2.6ish in snowy or wet/peanut butter mud conditions. You also need to consider that parts of the route are genuinely very far from services or civilization if you have an underbiking related mechanical or accident. It also depends a lot on your expected daily mileage (racing vs touring kinda thing). Obviously more miles per day will be more comfortable on a bigger tire but you hit an inflection point where you spend too much energy pushing the rig on the flatter/more paved sections.
All this said, I’d say the range of 48mm to 2.2” is optimal for good condition summertime Divide. Something like a 2.1” Mezcal is perfect. Burt’s or Ikons are good too. There are plenty of tires around that range which would not be too risky or annoying on rowdier stuff. I probably would not consider anything under 40mm.
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I was going to offer a caveat that most of my gravel rides are 30ish miles, so yeah, as is often the case, you’re right. I’m too focused on my own experience where I spend a lot of time on these “fast” gravel rides waiting on a friend that effectively has a light, flat bar hard tail any time we hit pavement.
anyone have experience with the KS e-20i 27.2 dropper?
I just installed a 65mm one of these on wife mtn bike. Has zero miles on it still.
It is shorter in the frame than I expected, I could have gone longer. AMA
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i didnt realize they came in 65- i thought just 100 and 125.
i think i need to just get the pnw ranier 3 tho
You’re right. I got eTENi, I didn’t realize there was an e20i. I got this one:
It has setback, so I guess it’s gravel oriented? Or just cheap.
I didn’t need setback, wanted to buy a OneUp V2 in shortyway, but they’re oos.
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Tire question for a courier friend.
Specialized Borough Sport 45C for $35 each
Yes or No
Curious how they corner at high speeds through dry intersections lol
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not tough enough imo. ‘black belt protection’ means little, it’s the same thing their road sport tires have. as a courier, for that money i’d get a conti ride tour or something similar for highest protection and mileage. the ride quality sucks but who really cares
regarding the knobs, honestly on most of the narrowish rims these tires find their way onto, they’re so far up the sidewall you barely touch them to pavement cornering at speed unless you’re doing some serious criterium reenactment, and then it mostly just makes a little noise
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Thanks, they took your advice!
Ok so how hard would it be to be the Ratio Tech of digital shifting?
I am not a specialist in this stuff, could you hack AXS or Di2 or EPS units so that they talk across company bounds? is this just a question of telling the derailleurs what a signal from a shifter button means?
I’m thinking about how, if electronic shifting is invevitable, one could avoid getting stuck using Zwift Presents SRAM Drivetrains powered by Boston Dynamics or whatever malign bullshit the bike industry is going to send our way.
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Bro I’ve been trying to ask nerds to hack di2 for years
The bike/computer nerd cross section is few and those that might be willing and probably have the skills (looking at you @Orc @JUGE_FREDD) haven’t done it yet
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I have no skills in this arena, but I have some stupid ideas on how to make electronic shifting marginally different and would love to be involved in the conversation.
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