Specialized Brings Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to Mountain Bike Tire Design

As a structural engineer, this makes me drool.

They did all that analysis and got a tire (ground control) that looks like something Schwalbe has been making for 5+ years 🙂

A tire is a tire is a tire. Whatever you choose to wrap around your wheels you will adapt to. Given, some tread designs will boast better performance on certain terrain. But that’s the point, no two trails are alike. If anything I think the durameter and casing design has a bigger impact than anything else. There are just too many variables to determine that one tread will out perform another in more than one environment. That’s why pro’s choose a different tire for every course, and why I ride the same thing everywhere.

a – in short, yes the tire leading edge will flex – tire siping is real i think? it allows the tire knob to not only flex as designed/needed, but allows more right angles (edges) to contact the rock, wet root, etc. it does make a difference. i’m not an engineer, just bike shop guy and racer dork. apparently, as you state it, the fea is just marketing because chris wyatt is definitely not clueless.

marek – you probably think that a cannondale prophet is the same as a specialized enduro or that a Blur is the same as a Trance because they ‘look’ like each other.

alloycowboy – i had never heard geax was using fea, but the picture in their catalogue does look cool. i haven’t used their tires and i’ve never heard any good reviews – maybe they have been using fea for years, but i think making good tires is probably more important.

just my two cents.

call420 – perhaps the voice of reason has returned here. my points were:

1. the prophet and enduro both have X-shape front triangles and the blur/trance both use short dual rotating links (vpp and maestro) in their suspension. the point is that they ‘look’ like each other, but i’m sure most riders would be able to feel (or at least recognize) a difference. marek mentioned that ‘they got a tire that looks like something Schwalbe has been making for 5+ years.’ i can appreciate the smile face but my point stands, with tires its not only the casing, tread pattern, durometer, tubeless compatibility, etc. i know schwalbe makes great tires, however they are not the same because they ‘look’ the same.

2. mentioning geax, i guess my point was that regardless of what they use for ‘design’ that the end product is what we need to judge them by – maybe they’ve been using FEA since the 80’s to ‘design’ tires, but their end product hasn’t seemed to gain notoriety – at least no one has ever come into any of the shops i’ve worked at asking for a geax. yes, these shops were the center of the universe.

3. as suckling the teet goes – i think thats a funny analogy, pat on the back for you – i sell specialized stuff for a living, but i’m not going to go say that they don’t mistakes and/or bad products. and yes, copying then calling it innovation is something they should get a slap on the wrist from the bike industry parents (whoever they are). calling cannondale’s open standard bb30 their own osBB. tapered front ends – first used by look, klein, and ridley that specialized ‘revolutionized.’ the list goes on, however i will argue that right now their tires are killing it. evidenced by the local college kids that come in to buy them at retail when they could be shopping maxxis, geax, kenda, whatever else on the interwebs.

i like specialized enough to argue for the things they do well, but also to criticize their faults. anyways, i am glad that so many of us are passionate about our tires – sorry i like stirring the pot. But i think it shows A tire is a tire is a tire is not quite an accurate statement. i’m not a pro anyways. smile face time =)