All The Six Fifty Bees Thread! (650b, 27.5 etc.).

I believe 454g is pretty impressive once you considered the sizes of it, 2x lightweight 23mm (230g) tyres weight as much as one Rat Trap Pass, which IMHO the weight is much more in proportion to the sizes (or better).

I've had a worrying number of punctures on the standard casing, it might be sheer bad luck but I wouldn't recommend the extralight either. Interestingly the Grand Bois Lierre, despite having a poor thread design that attract small stones etc... actually fared much better.

The thread design actually prevent small stones and the like from getting embedded, which seemed to work quite well.

I start to get punctures on the Hetres once it start to go very slick with no thread at all.

Really that impressive? You done any light off roading/paths on the hetres? What are they like?

In regard to this, the other 650b bicycle I've ridden was the Cannondale Slate with the 40mm Schwalbe G-One tyres.

In the trade show, I rode it in a very twisty singletrack in Cannock Chase Forest to see how I get on, there's some section that have what felt like a massive 40% climb on loose gravel, as well as descending on the very same gravel.

The 40mm width was just on the threshold of being too small, no way I would ride a cyclocross bike on that particular singletrack, the tyres perform O.K. but it's quite likely the pressure was a little on the high side to really provide decent traction (bit of wheel slippage on the climb), and doesn't quite work when it's slightly muddy unfortunately but it was much more confident-inspiring than a regular CX tyres at 35mm, and I was surprise how stable it feel at 40mm as it look tiny compare to the Grand Bois Hetres.

So as long you stick above 40mm, I reckon you won't have any problem, especially if you're already a confident rider.

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@edscoble ta very much. Need to measure my frame now.

@Chak recently bought Rat Trap Pass (ultralight) for my tourer and only put 50km ish on them but so far they're lovely. Scary light for such big tyres, and absurdly smooth over rough roads. Haven't started mucking with the pressures yet, just chucked 30 in the front and 40 in the back.

Wish they'd had them in black at Velo Vitality when I ordered though, which is ironic because they now ONLY have black.

@edscoble you're running the SWH at 40PSI, front and rear?? I'm 88kg and running them at 26/32 PSI front and back... like riding a sofa. My main commute is a mix of 20% road and 80% old railway track, mixture of hard pack, grass and gravel.

I'm going to try upping the pressure but you should def try and see how low you can go.

Did Scoble just get Scobled?

I would say so!

potentialy stupid question.
my kaffenback needs maybe 2 mm more clearnace in the chainstay area to run 42mm tires.
Is there any sane way to achive this ?

The more supple the tyres, the higher the pressure you can actually go and still be smooth, the SWH casing is slightly more supple than the Grand Bois Hetres

In London with the start-stop traffic, I ride at 40psi, normal road riding in the countryside/club ride is 35psi, and 400+km audax is 30psi (all grand Bois Hetres).

It's currently resting at 50psi at home to stretch the tyres and bed it in a bit before dropping the pressure, I do this process to all my tyres.

BTW, 40psi front because of the handlebar bag, which tend to have pump, inner tube, lock, wallet etc.

An accidental Scobling... fluke, I assure you.

Is this yours? Care to share brake / rim / tyre deets?

edit: no worries, I found it.

HA! That might be my fault. Depending when you went, I was really rinsing the Slate. It's shockingly good. Possibly abandoning the road bike for something like that. Didn't expect it to be so muddy, so upped the pressure a bit too high. Damn good bike.

Yeah you done fucked up good.

I let off a lots of pressure after a few minutes riding on the road! bit annoying that the rear clearance is tiny (someone is riding a Slate with the 48mm Switchback HIll and just about clear it).

Sue me! I was too busy trying to break the lefty.
It's a really interesting bike. Not sure it's intended for anything more than 48mm, cos then you could just ride anything rigid with a larger tyre at lower PSI, chain-stay accommodating of course. Either they didn't bother adapting the frame, but I think the whole point is to sell the idea of the lefty.

I reckon you're right on the Lefty, it's fucking amazing, I mean with suspension fork, you wanna lock it out on the road, but on that particular bike, I was happy to leave it unlocked and not feel like it's sapping me of energy.

Having said that, I'm more inclined to convert my carbon disc bike into a 650b because of the Slate rather than buying one, most especially after checking the chainstay clearance;

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The damping on it was pretty fucking sorted that's for sure.
Really keen on what you're doing with that. How much tyre can you clear since you don't have bendy style stays? Bored of the road bike, so looking to build something like this.

At the moment, I can run a 32mm tyres on it, which mean in theory a 38mm 650b tyres can fit, but I'm hoping my old Grand Bois Hetres will fit in (ditto on front).

The majority of the road I want to ride in are in poor condition as if there was a war on, all the manufacturer kept making the bike as comfortable as possible to make it slightly more bearable instead of just put bigger tyres in the first place.

Only problem - MTB 650b thru-axles wheelset are usually 10 speed rather than 11, so gonna have to build a Hope thru axles wheelset and replace the freehub body for a 11 speed one.

WTB with their Road Plus ideas is on the right path, by converting 700c bicycles into 650b;

Speaking of clearances, thinking of doing a conversion on my Soma ES. Just bought a thorn fork and clearance at 320mm from the axle is about 45mm. I guess hoping to fit a 42mm tyre in there is going to be wishful? Would probably still do it for the 38mm anyway.

You got 1.5mm of clearance each side, might work, if you're in London, can lend you a 42mm tyres to check out the clearance.

Shit yeah, that's true. Can't think of a lot of OTP frames that come with bolt through anyway. If I remember right, both WTB and Bonty offer 11speed hubs in the required spacing.
Might check out the Norco Threshold tomorrow to see what the chainstays are like.

Ah, thanks, but I'm not. Going to hold it up to my mrs' front wheel and see what it looks like. She has 40c I think, might even be able to ride it a little if the gears decide to play.

Ed, Please can you oblige me with a head on photo of the Elephant wearing its new tyres.

Just to get a grasp of how wide they actually are/look.

The bike looks amazing!