On Wednesday, December 13, 2017 at 8:24:56 PM UTC-8, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 11:54:52 -0500, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

snip

For me, the relevant Compass slick widths are 35, 38, and 44 with two case
options: Regular and Lightweight. I'm thinking that anything below
35 would defeat my purpose, which is a tire that:

snip

I have a pair of Compass 26 x 1.8s that I bought for my birthday, which
was the only way I could justify such extravagant tire prices. I'm
sorry but nearly $90 for a g*****n bike tire is just too damn much
money. Compass is by no means the most expensive tire on the market,
indeed they seem to be in the middle of the spectrum these days. My
baseline comparison on that bike is Panaracer Pasela 27 x 1.75, which
were about $25 each.

I will also say up front that I am delberately skeptical about Jan's
various tests and claims. My tastes in bikes are somewhat similar to
his- with the primary exception of not liking very low trail bikes- and
I am suspicious of confirmation bias on my part as a result.

Conclusions:

1. If you run at Jan Heine's recommended pressures and weigh 230 lbs
ike me, handling will be unstable. The tire starts to collapse as you
lean it into corners. I run 50 psi in the front and about 55 ps in the
back and that solved that problem. The threshold of this phenomenon is
pretty sharp.

2. Jan makes various claims about the tires. The ones that I can say
are true my experience are (a) the tires are very, very quiet on the
road; (b) rolling resistance seems a bit lower but I find this only
noticeable at low speeds and while climbing, where it really does seem
noticeable. At least the feel of the tires is different. The quietness
is my favorite feature, actually- the Pasela tread gives a little
buzzing noise. They are a pleasant tire to ride and I would say I enjoy
the bike a more than I did with the Paselas.

3. The claims I can't confirm are (a) that the tires are faster than my
Paselas- my average speeds over my usual routes are within .1-.2 mph of
each other. Nothing else on the bike is different other than the tires-
even the same inner tubes were used; (b) tread longevity as I only have
about 400-500 miles on them so far.

4. The tires (I bought the extralights) are noticeably lighter than the
Panaracers. I don't have a suitable scale to weigh them. This is not
apples to apples as the Compass tires have folding beads and the Paselas
do not. But the tread is obviously thinner and the casing feels
thinner. There are testamonials of getting 5000 or more miles on a set
of these tires- if that works out for me, probably about 5 years of
riding on that bike, I will withdraw my complaint about price and buy
another set.

5. The tire casings seem more consistent than the Paselas- the Compass
tires don't have a wobble or distortion at the joint whereas every
Pasela I have ever used does. They fit well to the rims; mounting on
Sun CR18s was about par for the course with folding beads. I have old
school fabric rim strips on those rims and that makes mounting just a
smidge more difficult. I have not had any flats and have not tried to
remove them yet.

I found the Paselas were prone to sidewall damage. I also had a problems mounting Gatorskins on a CR18s because of the shallow rim well, so choosing a tire that fits that rim is important.

I'm still amazed at the $90 on price tag. What about all the Schwalbe tires?

My complaints about tires typically involve tires that are sluggish. I've rarely felt like a well made 25/28mm tire was beating me to death on the road, although I've had some larger hard-case tires that rode like wagon wheels. Tire dimensions are no guaranty of comfort. I've got some 35mm studs that ride like tank tracks. I'm riding 32mm tires on my commuter for better footing in the rain, which has gone away for the last few weeks (bad news for snow at the resorts). They're fine, but nothing special in terms of comfort. They really feel no different than my 28mm Gatorskins except they're heavier and a little more sluggish.

-- Jay Beattie.