Price Reduced: Original Dual-Purpose Knobbies
The prime cycling season has started in Seattle, with warm, sunny days, great mountain views, and joyful rides with friends. It’s also a time when we often realize that our bikes need some TLC.* And when it comes to buying replacements for parts that have worn out, we’re often faced with sticker shock.
Inflation isn’t fun, because it’s squeezing all of us from every angle. Groceries, gas prices, health insurance—even bike parts: Everything is getting more expensive lately. It’s the same for the makers of those bike parts: Raw materials, supplier costs, warehouse rent, shipping—even credit card fees: Everything has gone up!
At Rene Herse Cycles, we’ve streamlined our operations, to avoid passing on all these increases directly to our customers. And we’ve been thinking about other ways of offering relief: We’ve been looking long and hard at our cost structures to figure out if we could lower prices rather than raise them.
With tires, the cost of making them can be split into two parts:
- R&D and mold costs are very significant parts of the final price. Those costs get amortized over time. The longer a tire is in production, the lower those costs become on a per-tire basis. (Until the mold wears out and needs replacing.)
- Production costs accrue every time a tire is made. Unfortunately, high-performance tires are made by hand, and the production costs are substantial. There’s nothing we can do about that. (Cutting corners isn’t something we’d ever consider.)
Back to those R&D and mold costs: Our original dual-purpose knobbies have been around for a while now: the 700×38 Steilacoom, the 700×42 Hurricane Ridge and the 650Bx42 Pumpkin Ridge. Demand remain strong, so they continue to be a mainstay of our program. We’ve been lucky, the molds are still going strong. And since those tires were so far ahead of their time, they still offer excellent performance today—just like they did when Ted King was leading the pro peloton at Unbound on Hurricane Ridges back in 2019 (top photo).
These tires have the same supple casings as our other models. They have the same large, widely-spaced knobs that make them roll and corner like slicks (above)—until the surface turns loose or muddy, and the knobs dig in and provide amazing traction (below). They are tubeless-compatible, but work just as well with our TPU tubes. Both are available in our signature casings:
- Standard is our more affordable option: comfortable and fast, yet also strong to withstand considerable abuse.
- Extralight takes the speed, comfort and feel of your bike to an entirely new level.
- Endurance is reinforced for extra sidewall protection and puncture resistance, while retaining the speed and comfort for which Rene Herse tires are famous.
- Endurance Plus provides the ultimate in sidewall protection for extremely tough conditions. (700×42 Hurricane Ridge only)
What they don’t have are the Noise Cancelling and Brake Support technologies of our newer dual-purpose knobbies. They are still relatively quiet compared to most other knobby tires on the market, because the large knobs flex and squirm less and thus create less noise (and roll faster).
We’ve lowered the prices on these tires to reflect that mold and R&D costs are (almost) paid off. As a result, they now cost 10-15% less than our newer models. This isn’t a limited-time deal, but a permanent reduction. We hope this helps you, our customers, enjoy the speed and comfort of the tires you love, even in these challenging times.
More Information:
Photo credit: Ansel Dickey (Ted King at Unbound)
* For our international readers: TLC = tender loving care
