New Rene Herse Tire

[jadmt]

I wish RH would run a sale once and a while. I bought 4 RH tires last year and killed my tire budget

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by jadmt

I wish RH would run a sale once and a while. I bought 4 RH tires last year and killed my tire budget

wait, you have a budget?!?!

pfft, amateur!

[Jan Heine]

Thanks all for the nice words about the new tires. They really are special, and there's a lot of R&D in them. There seems to be some confusion about how that process works.

I had to smile, when I read about the 'vaster resources' of the big names in the tire world. Having visited the R&D departments of a variety of tire companies—Rene Herse Cycles works with more than one supplier—I think many people would be surprised how small they are. Rarely do more than a handful of people work on the engineering side, even at the big brands.

And much of that engineering is production engineering—stuff like figuring out why one mold is leaking rubber and why another tire always comes out with weird indentations, etc. In fact, our discussions with the engineers at our suppliers are a lot about those issues—stuff like where to put vent holes so that the tread patterns come out right when the tire is vulcanized. That's especially challenging with our knobbies, since they have few and large knobs, so a lot of rubber needs to be moved around. (The tires start as slicks before they are vulcanized.) Now you know why most gravel tires have a lot of small knobs...

As you can imagine, those things keep the teams busy, and there's very little time for basic research into making tires faster.

That's where we come in. We take all the ingredients available from a variety of suppliers and test them in real-road conditions. Not just with the RH team, but also with our riders like Ted King, Lael Wilcox, Lauren de Crescenzo, Sofiane Sehili, Brennan Wertz and others. We get data on rolling resistance (on real roads, not in the lab without a rider) and also durability in the field.

As a small, nimble company, we can get that data quickly. Feedback from racers goes directly to me, not to some marketing person who then may or may not forward it to the engineers. We ask our racers to return their tires (unheard of in the industry, for some reason), so we can examine how they've performed and where they might fail.

During the development process, we don't have deadlines (and we don't go home at 5 p.m.), so we can get another run of prototypes made with a slightly different set of ingredients, test them, repeat—until everything is just perfect.

In a way, making tires is like cooking: Anybody can buy the ingredients, but the skill is in figuring out how to combine them and how to prepare them. Just because I can go to the Tokyo fish market (fascinating place, by the way!) and buy fish doesn't mean I can become a world-class sushi chef. And the fishermen aren't sushi chefs, either—just like the chefs aren't necessarily good at fishing. And the best chefs often work at small, independent restaurants.

The tire company engineers are great at turning our vision into tires (figuring out where to put those vent holes!), but we need to be the chefs who decide which ingredients to use and how to combine them.

Jan Heine
Rene Herse Cycles

[truth]

Thanks, Jan!

[merckx]

Jan, it appears that the OG is the tubeless version of the Stampede Pass. Is that correct?

Do you have any data regarding the CRR of the OG setup as tubeless versus the Stampede Pass with a tube?

[Jan Heine]

Actually, they are completely different tires. Yes, similar tread pattern and width, but that's about where the similarities end.

Originally Posted by merckx

Jan, it appears that the OG is the tubeless version of the Stampede Pass. Is that correct?

Do you have any data regarding the CRR of the OG setup as tubeless versus the Stampede Pass with a tube?

[ERK55]

Originally Posted by Jan Heine

Actually, they are completely different tires. Yes, similar tread pattern and width, but that's about where the similarities end.

As a non-tubeless user can I ask how these tires work work out using a tube?

[palincss]

Originally Posted by ERK55

As a non-tubeless user can I ask how these tires work work out using a tube?

If being designed for tubeless means having a tighter bead than would be the case for a non-tubeless tire and you have two very similar tires of the same size, one tubeless and one not, why would you chose to use the tubeless one with tubes?

[gospastic]

I’m curious, why in the post is the comparison made to the Corsa n.ext and the GP 5000 TLs?

[Jan Heine]

The Orondo Grades work fine with tubes, but we recommend the Stampede Pass for that. Not only are the Stampedes a bit less expensive, but they are also easier to mount. The fit of all road tubeless tires, regardless of maker, is quite tight. Has to be, so that the tires can be inflated safely to high pressures and not come off the rim, even if the rim is not quite to spec, but a tiny bit undersize...

Originally Posted by ERK55

As a non-tubeless user can I ask how these tires work work out using a tube?

[Jan Heine]

Those are the top-of-the-line tubeless racing tires from big makers, so they were among the benchmarks we considered during R&D. We actually don't have target weights, as our tires weigh what they weigh, based on the other characteristics we want from them—especially durability. So we were surprised that even our toughest casing turned out significantly lighter than these pro-level tires.

Originally Posted by gospastic

I’m curious, why in the post is the comparison made to the Corsa n.ext and the GP 5000 TLs?

[jadmt]

Originally Posted by Jan Heine

Those are the top-of-the-line tubeless racing tires from big makers, so they were among the benchmarks we considered during R&D. We actually don't have target weights, as our tires weigh what they weigh, based on the other characteristics we want from them—especially durability. So we were surprised that even our toughest casing turned out significantly lighter than these pro-level tires.

have you ever thought about giving some early buyers or a paceline discounts? i know probably not the norm but there are guys like me who have to buy tires when they go on sale...lest our wives will have us sleeping in the cold ...

[Jan Heine]

Sorry, I answered your question from the product development perspective. From a user perspective, you are absolutely right: If you've been wishing for a tubeless version of the Stamped Pass, this is it.

Originally Posted by merckx

Jan, it appears that the OG is the tubeless version of the Stampede Pass. Is that correct?

Do you have any data regarding the CRR of the OG setup as tubeless versus the Stampede Pass with a tube?

[RoosterCogset]

Up to 90psi, tubeless (and hookless?) -- Enve rim shown in the article.

[AngryScientist]

I have to say I appreciate Jan chiming in here.

Love or hate RH stuff, it's always good to hear direct from the designer of the product, so thanks for that.

I will probably pick up a pair of these this year for my mid gravel bike.