Podcast: Big Tire Talk – what is behind the shift to mountain bike tires on gravel?

It is finally time to talk big tires.

The subject is all the rage these days, but we’ve been here for a while – riding our thick mountain bike tires on rigid drop bar bikes for years. Nevertheless, we are intrigued by a lot of what is coming to the discourse, especially some of the quantitative testing we are seeing from certain corners of the internet. Most notably, John Karrasch, a.k.a @flexfitbyjohn on Instagram.

The bike fitter, a turned-off-road rolling resistance guru, has refined a form of the Chung method for testing to objectively measure the rolling resistance of countless tires, posting comprehensible graphs that demonstrate the comparative value of each. Karrasch also has a Patreon where he goes deeper into the data and breaks down the nuances of the different traits of the tires he tests.

Now, he is a niche-expert who has become a legend in the small corner of the internet that is interested in going fast on gravel. He is also a frequent pen pal with the Rodeo Labs crew, so we had to have him on the podcast to really get into the nitty-gritty details.

If you want to learn more about John’s testing, check out his Patreon account here.

Logan has also written some pretty detailed stories on the subject. Here is a story he did for Cycling Weekly on some of his favorite options.

Hosts: Logan Jones-Wilkins, Drew Van Kampen, Stephen Fitzgerald

Guest: John Karrasch