I'm far from a pro. Just some guy who is testing a bicycle.....
I do have HUGE respect for G/Odyssey however, the way G was talking he was all but shutting this thing down. Sure it's a niche market but if one company is making the tires, they'd be getting all the sales. Looks like those sales will be going to Fit/Revenge....
This really was not my intention, please re-read what I wrote and try to see where I am really coming from.
As I already stated many times, I would LIKE to see this size develop and have a chance to prove itself. I then went on to try to have a mature conversation about whether I thought it was
likely and I (stupidly it turns out) thought that people might be interested in what I see as the manufacturing pitfalls and also the potential performance pitfall. 22" could be better than 20" but the difference between a good tyre and a bad one could easily be enough to hide a lot of benefits...
I have been to tyre factories. I have seen the equipment used. I have had senior staff at the factory slag off their own "basic" assembly machines and then 2 minutes later asked them which machines make our 20" tyres and have them look sheepish and explain that it WAS the "basic" machines he just slagged off. (thankfully this has changed now and there are 20" versions of the "super duper" machines and it is these that have made OUR tyres for the last several years (3 or 4) and the quality has gone up and the QC rejection rate down as a result).
I think of this as "interesting information about how tyres are made", you somehow see it as an attack on the 22" size.
I KNOW that if WE walked into the factory and said we wanted to do a 22" tyre that we would have them try to talk us out of it for some considerable time. I realise that you may think that Odyssey is a big company, but to these tyre makers we are "small potatoes", we make a few thousand tyres a year in their factory that makes MILLIONS of other tyres, they do not want to make investments in new machines if they even VAGUELY think that it is not going to become HUGE. They would NOT be stoked on it and as a project it would probably not go well for us.... However I think that S&M/Fit ordered some improbably huge number of tyres last year so they may have got a better reception than I imagine... If so then that is great. If the tyre makers are cool with doing the size and either already have or set-up good machines for the assembly then I will have been proved totally wrong and I will be more than happy to say so... and yes we might even "jump on the bandwagon" and make parts for the size.
My point has always been that rims, frames, forks, spokes, tubes etc are all easy, it all hinges on the tyres, so if that is sorted then there is no reason it cant become super popular and maybe even take over from 20" as 29" is being predicted to do from 26" in MTB (though personally I will be sticking with 26" for a while yet).
I thought long and hard after typing this before posting it. I really dont want to further enrage you, I have better things to do, but at the same time I feel like there is an interesting conversation to be had here and I think it is worth one last crack at having it. I hope this makes sense and seems reasonable...
G.
Topic: 22 inches (Read 451330 times)
