gravel & tire width
 

I would like to do some rail to trails stuff, also some national forest fire roads. Various posibilites near St. Louis. Right now I only have a road bicycle. I tried the Katy trail a couple of times and the narrow tires sank into the damp crushed limestone. So what has been your experience with 28, 32, 35 width tires , on crushed limestone & gravel? I'm sure frame geometry is part of the issue also. Yes I do need a touring bicycle.

Dont over think it just go for a Bike ride.

people rode bikes on unpaved roads for a Long time before they started paving them

then the Horseless Carriage pushed them Off it.

Really? I certainly, without a shadow of a doubt, would go for the fatter tires, if I expected to go on gravel, even 10% of the time... A skinny tire in sand/gravel just totally, well, a fail... JMO ;) Can one "put up" with it? Certainly, but, how deep is the sand? how rough is the gravel? How far?...

It's one reason I dig using mtb's as touring bikes. You can fit skinnies or fatties without worry.

I have two sets of tires and rims for my current ride and swap them out depending. One set is 1.5" minimal tread and goes fast on pavement but when riding on gravel dike systems I worry about pinch flats or cuts. They also run at higher psi and tend to throw rocks like a pistol every so often. The other set are thicker, a little lower psi and handle a lot better in gravel yet still run well on pavement because of a pronounced center bead.

As to a road bike? I don't know. You are stuck trying to squeeze the biggest tire that will fit within the frame and that's not very big. And depending on the trail, risk throwing your rim out of true more than a beefy 26" 36 spoke rim.

Perhaps a good compromise in the short term would be to buy a cheap strong older mtb and throw a rear rack and some non knobby midsize tires on - total cost about... 100-200. Then you would have a low geared touring bike that could handle gravel or road and would do until the better touring bike came along.

A crushed limestone trail is totally different from a gravel road, at least around me.
Two totally different surfaces.

32s on hardpack limestone is fine. Fatter is fine.

35s on gravel around me have worked. I use 38s. Im sure fatter would be fine though.

I agree, but on really nice R2T's you can get away with 28's though I do prefer 32's.

I've used either 25 or 28 mm tires for decades off-road. They are fine until I find myself with miles of either sand or water-saturated clay, then they fail miserably. If someone put down some gravel or crushed limestone, anything works, but not equally comfortably. Now I'm old and no longer get a thrill from fighting the surface, so I roll much fatter tires (up to 54 mm on the tandem). In fact, I rarely go under 42 mm any more. There are some awfully nice supple wide tires out there that, while a bit heavier than the skinny tires you're used to, have lower rolling resistance on almost every surface.

From another thread you started:
"I cruised Salsa bicycles this morning. I know about the Fargo, it looked interesting. But I would expect better quality steel for the price. Then I looked at the Cut throat. WOW!!! A full carbon bicycle for $3K, with a carbon fork with bolt-ons for front racks. I've never seen a fork like that. Decent Scram equipment. Better drive train is available for another $1K. I hear Salsa is sold out until next fall. I called the shop I worked at 35 yrs. ago, They have one coming in as a floor model. My model, my size. They were wiling to put my name on it. I've changed my underwear since then, and am interested to hear from anybody with Salsa CutThroat experience.:"

So, what's wrong with using your Salsa Cut Throat for this rail-trail?

cheers

In olden days most of local bike trails were crushed limestone; my road bikes IIRC limited to 32mm wide tires which helped a bit vs narrower tires on the racing wheels. The local limestone trails didn't get too soggy but gravel/clay ie C&O Canal path gave punishing ride & sketchy handling even w/32mm. OTOH now one can buy 35mm cross tires which might help.

Squeezebox, Generally wider is better, but not necessarily meaning a fat tired bike.

I had some 35 mm Panaracer Crosstowns on my touring bike and they were almost too wide to fit between the chainstays. They handled even ungroomed trails very well. On a different touring bike, but with the same frame, I have 37 mm Continentals that are much more narrow. Not quite as good on ungroomed trails nor would I expect them to do very well in loose sand. The bike that had the Crosstowns now has 32 mm Continentals and they're quite adequate for groomed trails.

A '90s era fully rigid mountain bike converted to a touring bike would be a very good choice regardless of the road surface you plan to tour on, even more so if you plan to ride the R2T routes.

Brad

What he said. Your bike should come with tires adequate for what you've mentioned. Have you posted a ride report?

Now that my old touring bike has died, I'm looking around for a new bike. Probably the single most important selection criteria that I have is the ability for the bike to accept fat tires. The largest tire my old bike could accommodate was 35mm, I found that to be way too narrow for some gravel roads, it was just too hard on the body. The comfort afforded by larger tires cannot be overstated after spending days or even a few hours riding gravel, so my advice - go large.:)

Squeeze, optimum tire size depends on your weight/load as much as the surface. If you're light w no weight on the bike 32mm at the right pressure can be great for flying fast, if you're 225 with 30lbs on the rear I'd go for anything above 42mm. Also some tires have flatter profiles and others a bit of a pronounced centerline,

I just run the fattest tire that will fit under the fenders.

The crushed stone paths in this area vary a lot. Early in the spring, after the snow has melted and before they really dry out, they can be a little too soft to ride with 32's, but for the rest of the year there's no problem with thinner tires. But no matter where I go, I often run into roads with unpredictable surfaces, and wider tires are always better than narrow ones. On sand, it really helps to let some air out.

I have driven on gravel on tires as narrow as 23 mm, and they were OK, but I wouldn't choose to do it again. I had an accident in September when my 28 mm tires lost grip on a gravel road.

In the future: 32 mm minimum.

Agree, and also don't forget, those larger tires better protect your rims from getting scratched and torn up as well.

Skinny 26" and wide 700c meet at about 32mm width. wider ? go MTB .

OP did not buy the Salsa CT.

At least Ty0604's posts were entertaining.

Another armchair cyclist.

At this point I'm leaning against it because of the lack of fender and rack eyelets

I've ridden a lot on unpaved trails and roads, and I prefer at least 32s and 35s are better. Some tread is also important if there's any chance for mud or wet spots. I rode the entire GAP-C&O Canal trails on 32mm Panaracer Paselas one summer, and on Clement LAS 35s the following summer. The Clements were much better, particularly in mud and loose gravel.

There are simply too many options in good tires now to buy a bike with less clearance than 50mm tires and no real reason to ride less than 40mm tires. My opinion is that if might be riding off pavement, I want 50mm tires....at least.

OP, if you are looking for a bike, find a Surly dealer and test ride a Troll, Ogre or Karate Monkey. Any of those would be fantastic for the riding you are describing and you would have maximum versatility in tire width.

My LHT came with 1.5 and now I have 2.0 both were comfortable.

+1.

While wider tires are not for everyone all the time, given the OP's question, the fattest tire which will fit under fenders, with a conservative tread pattern for low rolling resistance and long wear life, would be my recommendation.

do you have a bicycle now?

maybe tell us what you got and what you want to
do with it, and we'll help you set it up properly.
m'kay?