David Finetto
Specialized Italia presented to some press officers (including 365) some new technologies that we will present later in the year. In the presence of technicians from the United States (including Roger Minkow), a news that was already circulating on the net was made official, namely the choice of the Morgan Hill multinational to insert mountain bike tires with an intermediate diameter of 27,5 "(650B).
However, we do not think of Specialized bikes in the 27,5 "format (at least for the next few years) since the decision to produce 650B tires was dictated only to respond to market demands. There are many end users who love Specialized tires even if they don't ride a Morgan Hill bike.
Here in detail what the 27,5er models will be:
S-Works Fast Track x 2.0
Ground Control x 2.1
Purgatory Control x 2.3
Purgatory Grid x 2.3
Butcher Control x 2.3
The following tires (and all those in the road and off-road range) are undergoing many improvements in terms of compound and applied technology. In the road department, very protective tires with wider sections than the standard are being developed, demonstrating that the wider a section, the more smooth it is, thus dispelling many myths. In Mountainbike this aspect has already been widely ascertained but in the road sector there is still a tendency to believe that a narrower tire gives more speed.
The MTB tires will be produced in the latest evolution of the Grid technology which until recently identifies the "real" UST, ie with a perfectly airtight carcass without the need to add latex: this system works but does not allow perfect flexion of the carcass. With the renewed Grid type you will be faced with a sort of tubeless ready (but more robust) that will exploit the technology developed for Armadillo road tires, with a dense composite network that covers the entire available surface, with a seal to the cut on the sides and to the punctures on the tread significantly increased (see photo) ... and all while lowering the weight!
An example: the Purgatory 29 × 2.3 model weighed 1003 grams while in the new version it reached 785 grams with the same resistance.
