On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:37:04 -0800 (PST), HaloTupolev
wrote:
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.

Are you sure that you're running his recommended pressures? I thought
he's posted before that he runs higher pressures on pavement-only
rides than gravel due to this phenomenon, and he definitely recommends
experimenting with wide tires because of how sensitive their behavior
is with tire pressure changes.

Well, as noted the slope for revealing the effect is sharp- just a few
PSI makes a huge difference. I expect to run higher pressures than Jan
writes about because I am probably 60+ pounds heavier than he is. I am
still fine tuning my inflation pressures with those tires, having only
400-500 miles on them.

For what it's worth, when I ride good roads, I ride my Rat Trap Pass
ELs (measure 2.1") at 40r/35f, and I weigh 170lbs. Considering your
added weight and the reduced width of your tires, I'm not surprised
you'd like running your rear at 55PSI for pavement, especially given
that you've got narrower rims than I do (CR18 has 18mm internal width,
my rims have 24mm internal width). I often ride 30PSI or lower on
gravel rides, where foldover is less of an issue because the riding
surface breaks away when you corner hard. When I have them set up like
that, they definitely feel squirmy in paved cornering.

"Squirmy" is a good descriptor of the phenomenon. The oversteer
characteristic that he attributed to tread pattern is, in my experience,
solely due to underinflation.

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

I'm not familiar with that particular claim, but I'd actually strongly
disagree with it. My Rat Trap Pass ELs absolutely roar on good roads.
Road hum is a pretty common thing with supple road tire setups.

Compared to my Paselas the 1.8s are very very quiet. But yes, there is
a beach-ball-noise effect with wide tires. It's even more pronounced
IME wth latex tubes.