Super Mega Ultra Monstercross, or, how much tire is too much tire?
good times and sand ahead
In 2021 I had a massive crash that resulted in an extremely broken collarbone. My dad and I were doing a slightly ambitious slightly naïve day ride around Torch Lake. We knew we wanted to ride as much dirt as possible, but I was not nearly as good at making routes as I was now. I didn’t even have a bike computer. But using Google Maps and Strava I put together a route. We figured we’d take some chances on some dirt roads if we saw them.
taken before The Great Snappening of 2021
A few miles into the ride we decided to duck out off my loose route and onto an unmaintained seasonal road. We climbed for a while, and when the road finally pointed downward I decided to start bombing without braking, determined to carry as much momentum down the descent as possible. Then my front wheel sank hard into what seemed to be a foot of sand. A massive OTB ensued, I crashed hard, and it took at least an hour for my dad to ride back to the car and get me out of the bush and to the hospital. When I eventually saw my orthopedic surgeon he told me that the two sections of my collarbone were “in different area codes.” Yikes. Many lessons were learned that day.
*Ludacris plays softly in the background*
One of those lessons was that maybe even 2.3” (50mm actual, René Herse Rat Trap Pass) tires still aren’t enough for the “gravel” roads I want to ride in the sandy shores and wooded paths through Northwest Michigan. I started thinking a lot about plus tires on “gravel” bikes. Around this time Stooge announced their Rambler. I had been drooling over Stooge bicycles since I saw Matt Lakin’s MK4 bike check on Pinkbike, and I had been considering a proper purpose built drop bar off road bike instead of the hacked and bodged 90s mountain bikes I had been riding, so why not get two birds stoned at once?
I set an alarm to pre-order the Rambler the second it was available (I must have been the first pre-order), then I started amassing parts. Andy designed it around 27.5, so I had Scotty at Cycletherapy build me up a custom silver 28 hole Velocity Blunt 35 wheelset with a Son dynamo hub I scored for a good deal used and my min-max-special Koozer rear hub. The Blunt 35 has 30mm internal, which is great for tires 2” through 2.8”.
On a trip up north to The Dragon trail I picked up this new wheelset from Cycletherapy, and rode the machine built flowy singletrack with a 2.2” Continental Race King in the rear and a 2.8” Specialized Slaughter up front. I couldn’t believe how well the bike handled the dirt water slide trail, and this was even before I had a dropper post. The 2.8” tire added a lot of cushion and damping, and I think the pneumatic trail calmed the steering a tiny bit (not that the Rambler is particularly twitchy, but I digress). I kept the 2.8” on the front for a while before ultimately switching to 27.5 x 2.2” front and back for more grav dad antics. I’ll save my ramblings about that setup for another blog post, because today we’re talking about THE BIGGEST [non-fat] MEATZ.
It turns out the non-boost rear end of the Rambler couldn’t fit a 27.5x2.8” tire on a 30mm internal rim. I’m still kind of confused about it because I’ve seen other Stoogers (including Andy) fit a 2.8” back there, but maybe they’re on narrower rims or running undersized tires. But around this time I became very taken by the idea of 26+ via the Stridsland Beachcomber and Crust Nor’easter & Evasion. I thought that the smaller diameter wheel + bigger tire would maintain a nimble feel. I decided I had to build up a set of wheels, because you sure aren’t going to find a non-custom 26+ wheelset on the market.
I ended up grabbing some NOS Stan’s Barons hoops for a very good price on eBay, and laced it up to an old faithful Koozer rear hub and Shutter Precision front dynamo hub. I chucked a WTB Ranger 2.8” light/fast (2.6” actual) out back and an extremely hard to find-and-subsequently-purchase Surly Knard 3” 120tpi on the front. Mercifully they both fit, although with chain rub on a 12 speed cassette out back, but no real love lost there.
I first shook this setup down on a 16 mile mostly paved / some dirt roads / some singletrack ride. I was with two fast dudes and the tires felt fast enough for me. I then put about 100 miles on them up in the Manistee National Forest with virtually 0 pavement, and of course they handled brilliantly. But I had to know what the limit was for this setup— what kind of surface makes these tires start to feel really slow?
Yesterday we did a 24 mile straight up grav dad groad ride, exclusively hard packed dirt roads and a little bit of pavement, with quite a bit of climbing and descending. The dirt roads haven’t been regraded yet and were full of bomb holes, which were not exactly fun to run into, but felt totally composed thanks to the giant meatz. And I gotta say, the tires still didn’t feel like too much. Sure it didn’t feel as sporty and energetic as my 38mm Gravelking all-road setup, but with the right tire pressure I still don’t feel like I need to swap these tires out for Race Kings or similar tires for the summer. That being said, the 3” tire up front definitely feels like cornering on a 3” tire— not exactly vague but not exactly like your on rails. But for party pace riding I’m really pleased with these giant tires.
BTS
Because of who I am as a person I’m sure I’ll be swapping these tires around and experimenting. I just ordered some NOS Vittoria Booze Lights that I’m looking forward to trying. I still have a [pretty heavy and not-so-supple] Surly Extraterrestrial I could try too. Maybe a Booze Light out back and a 2.8” Ranger up front is the ultimate goldilocks setup? All I know is that you shouldn’t fear high quality supple 2.8” tires like the light/fast WTB Rangers for regular ol’ gravel riding, and even some pavement too.