Originally Posted by
Chris Chicago
Bicycle quarterly has some great articles. Their tire tests comparisons are very well done as are a lot of the bike reviews. Kind of a niche but when their content is good it's really good.
I subscribed to BQ this past year but will let it go. Heine and crew keep pushing 650b and it gets tiresome. 650b for randonneuring or touring with rim brakes is a niche that is unlikely to expand. Ironically, if framemakers made 650b touring frames with disc mounts, riders would have a larger choice of wheelsets, although tubeless rims/tires are becoming the norm on the MTB side. Soma, Surly, and even VO recognize this as they all have touring frames that offer 700c on the larger size and 26" for frames under about 54 cm (Soma Saga, Surly LHT, and VO Camargue). VO even added a 26" wheel size to their offerings after having only 700c and 650b for years.
BQ has done riders a favor by doing real world replicated tests of tires and air pressure.