Despite a lifetime spent on bicycles, I had never really thought about my tires. It didn't matter if I was mountain biking, cycle touring, or road cycling. I simply ran tubes and pumped my tires hard. Everybody I knew did the same. Fast forward a few years and I move to tubeless, first on my mountain bike and then on my road bike. It wasn't for performance, but rather to avoid dealing with pinch flats and minor punctures.
When the Surly Krampus was announced with its 29+ tire, I ordered one. After one ride, I was hooked. I could immediately recognize the benefit of a softer, wider tire. Whether pedaling on gravel roads or mountain bike trails, the tires were forgiving and, most importantly, the bike still felt fast.
It didn't take me long to dive deep on tire-related google searches. Not too long after that, I found a copy of Bicycle Quarterly at a boutique shop called Bike Touring News in Boise, Idaho. Jan Heine is the editor in chief, along with his bigger role as the owner René Herse owner. The article was so impactful, clearly outlining the speed benefits of lower pressures and wider tires, that I've ridden René Herse tires on my road and gravel bikes ever since.
Before you jump to the René Herse Tire Pressure Calculator and change the way you setup your gravel bike, enjoy this deep dive with the man behind the brand.
You purchased René Herse in the 2000s after the brand had been quiet for nearly 15 years. What prompted you to take over the brand?
It's actually a bit more complicated... I started Compass Bicycles way back to make the tires and components. Our group of friends was starting to explore the forgotten mountain passes in our backyard, the Cascade Mountains. We needed different bikes to ride far and fast, both on pavement during the approaches to the mountains, and then on gravel as we headed up the slopes. Nobody was making anything suitable back then—before 'gravel' was a thing.
We were inspired by the mid-century French bikepackers and randonneurs, who had been exploring remote areas in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and all over Europe. I went to France and met riders like the 94-year-old Paulette Porthault who had ridden all over Europe in the 1930s, before becoming one of the fastest competitors in the 1940s. Talking to these riders, everything led to René Herse, whom they called 'The Magician of Levallois' (after the part of Paris where his workshop was located). Herse made bikes with wide tires, small gears, and the ability to carry luggage—yet without compromising speed and fun: exactly what we were looking for.
I became friends with Lyli Herse, René's daughter, who'd worked with him all her life and who had continued the company after his death. One day, we were cleaning up in her kitchen after a gathering of 'anciens pilotes'—riders of the Herse team. She told me that she wished somebody could take over the company and continue the legacy. And she looked at me...
Given the opportunity to continue something so special — and seeing the trust that Lyli placed in me — I really could not resist. I've never felt the need to have my name on a product. Compass had been inspired by René Herse in so many ways, and acknowledging this inspiration just felt natural.
When you took over the company, what was your vision and how has that evolved in the past twenty years?
My vision was to bring back René Herse's way of making the very best components, not for road racing — which is well catered for by the bike industry — but for real-world riding and adventures. And to do so regardless of the usual considerations of cost, ease of manufacture, etc. I wanted to only make things riders needed and that weren't available elsewhere.
We started with wide and supple high-performance tires, at a time when wide tires were touring or mountain bike tires with stiff casings and high rolling resistance. Coming from a road racing background, I wanted the speed and comfort of supple racing tires, but in widths suitable for going on the roughest gravel roads in the Cascade Mountains. People laughed and said: "That's impossible! Anyhow, there is no market for that." But I felt that if my friends and I needed these parts, there would be others who wanted them, too. And if René Herse could make them, way back, so could we.
That's probably the essence of it: we're riders first and foremost, and only make stuff so we can enjoy our rides more. That's a bit different from most companies, and it means we'll always stay small. I'm happy with that.
How do you define your and/or René Herse's success?
We're successful if we put a smile on riders' faces when they use our tires and components. When we see photos on social media from out-of-the-way places with our tires and parts on bikes, we can imagine the adventures and fun that brought them to those places. And that makes our day, just like when somebody tells us how much they enjoy our supple tires and cranks with customized gearing on their Saturday morning spin.
Cycling is so much fun, and having the right bike with the right parts makes it even more fun. If we can facilitate that and still make a living, that's success for us.
Cycling is so much fun, and having the right bike with the right parts makes it even more fun. If we can facilitate that and still make a living, that's success for us.
What's the most challenging part of running a successful bicycle business?
The most challenging part has always been actually making things to our specs. When you look at the design of most bike parts, you realize that it's just as much dictated by what's easy to manufacture as by performance. Take cranks, for example. Most cranks have four or five spider arms and a relatively large bolt circle. That reduces the risk that the chainrings wobble even if tolerances are a bit loose.
Our René Herse cranks have only three arms and a small bolt circle. That saves a lot of weight and allows you to run any chainring or chainring combo you like, down to 24 teeth. But it means that tolerances have to be much, much tighter, and raw materials much higher grade than with most other cranks.
It's the same with our ultra-supple tires—there are many things that make them more difficult and costly during production, but that you really feel when you ride them. We're pushing the limits with almost everything we make, rather than compromising and settling for something that's easier to manufacture.
Compromise just isn't in our DNA. René Herse made parts for prototype aircraft before he started his company, and his bikes were made to aircraft specs. That wasn't easy then, and it's not easy today. On the plus side, nobody wants to copy what we make, because it's just too hard and expensive. There are some knock-offs and look-alikes, but they're always heavier and offer less performance than our originals.
You set the Oregon Outback FKT in 2021 riding 26” tires. How would you succinctly explain optimum wheel diameter, tire width and tire pressure?
My background is in science—in a past life, I had a NASA Fellowship to study climate change on Mount Rainier for my Ph.D. research. When we started exploring the Cascade Mountains, we wanted bikes that rode like road bikes on smooth pavement and on rough gravel. That wasn't even considered possible back then, so we started researching things like tire performance, frame stiffness, geometry and handling, etc. We realized that wider tires would be faster on rough gravel and just as fast on smooth pavement. You have to remember, back then, the first 'gravel grinders' were still debating whether 28 mm tires were 'too much tire' for gravel racing. So a 54 mm tire was way out there…
Intuitively, it makes sense that larger wheels roll better over bumps, but that's true only for solid wheels. Pneumatic tires are flat at the bottom. What matters is not the diameter of the wheel, but how easy it is to absorb bumps without jostling the entire bike. That's not just theory, but we've confirmed it in many tests: Smaller 650B and even 26" wheels roll as fast on gravel as 700C. That's why a supple casing and low tire pressure are so essential for speed on rough terrain: You want the tire to absorb bumps without moving the bike.
For the Oregon Outback, the idea was to create what is essentially a road bike, but with 54 mm-wide tires. The smaller 26" wheels keep the chainstays shorter (and stiffer), save a lot of weight, and retain the nimble handling of a road bike. I ran those 54 mm tires at 19 psi (1.3 bar), and the bike just floated over the bumps. I was honored that it took almost two years and multiple attempts until some really fast racers bettered my time—and they were running ultra-wide tires, too.
Is there a decided advantage to tubeless vs tubes?
Like all technologies, there are applications for both. For gravel racers who ride in a peloton, can't choose their line, and hit big rocks they don't even see, tubeless is great insurance against pinch flats and small cuts. If you ride on the shoulders of busy highways, tubeless sealant seals punctures from steel wires from burst truck tires. For those use cases, tubeless has been a game-changer.
The downsides of tubeless are the need to keep the sealant topped up, and the added rolling resistance from all that liquid sloshing in your tires.
Tubes are much less hassle—you just inflate your tires and go. Pinch flats aren't really an issue if you run wide-enough tires. And TPU and latex tubes are faster than tubeless setups, too.
It's not that tubeless or tubes are better—each has its applications. I set my FKTs in the Oregon Outback, the Arkansas High Country Race (South Loop) and the Dark Divide 300 on tubes, but I ride tubeless on my road bike because of those steel wires.
You are known for thinking outside the box. How does that translate into tangible products?
A good example are our knobby dual-purpose tires. Most of our rides include a combination of pavement, gravel, sometimes even mud and snow. For the latter, we need knobby tires. But traditional knobbies are slow and don't handle well on pavement. The knobs flex and rob power, and when you lean into a corner, they fold over, and the bike loses traction. So we thought: What if we start with a slick tire and cut away the tread more and more? Can we cut the tread away so much that only knobs remain, yet the tire still behaves like a slick on pavement? We did some calculations and realized that this should be possible. So we went for it… That's a totally new way of designing a knobby, and that's why our knobbies roll and corner like slicks on the road, but grip like knobbies when the surface is slippery.
Then we tackled the last bit that makes knobbies unpleasant on pavement: the noise. We realized that knobby tires are so loud because multiple knobs hit the ground at the same time. We came up with the idea to stagger the knobs, so that the frequencies are offset and cancel each other. Noise canceling on a bicycle tire has never been done before, and the result is what one reviewer called "far quieter than any knobbly tire should be."
As a brand, you sponsor many athletes like Sofiane Sehili, Lael Wilcox and Ted King. What is your relationship like with these athletes?
We don't have a marketing budget, so the 'sponsorship' is better described as a technical collaboration. These riders test our tires and report back what they find. Somebody like Sofiane, who won the Silk Road Mountain Race three times in a row, stresses our tires in ways no lab test can simulate. Pro gravel racers like Ted King or Brennan Wertz put out close to 500 Watts for an entire hour.
After big events, these riders send us their tires, so we can analyze them. That's invaluable for our R&D. They also help us articulate what riders and racers need to be successful in these ultra-tough events. And that benefits all our customers, because if a tire is strong enough to last the entire Tour Divide without even needing to top up air, as it did the year Sofiane won, then it'll also perform well for everybody else.
Have you ever considered sponsoring a World Tour team or diving deeper into road cycling?
(Laughs) We're way too small and poor to sponsor a World Tour team! Realistically, I don't see what we'd gain from that. Those races go on relatively smooth roads that are swept clean before the race. It might be good marketing, but it wouldn't offer much for R&D.
In fact, we offer some excellent road tires that have been ridden to many race wins and even championships. As mentioned above, we don't have a marketing budget to promote them. We'd rather spend the money on R&D. We figure riders will find us if they are looking for the best performance.
If you closed René Herse tomorrow, what would we find you doing next?
That's an interesting question! Growing up, I was fascinated by rally cars and off-road racing trucks. It's all about suspension and how to keep the wheels on the ground without having the rest of the car bounce and lose speed. That's been a huge inspiration, because we have the same issue on our bikes—how to keep the road shocks from bouncing the bike and rider. I could see myself working in that area, but there seem to be plenty of talented people already.
Knowing René Herse won't close tomorrow, what's next for you and the brand?
We'll keep doing what we think we do best: make tires and components for people who love riding, and who don't take 'Can't be done!' for an answer when they plan their adventures. We'll keep pushing the envelope to create tires and components that make cycling more fun by offering more speed, comfort, durability, and better ride feel.
What's your favourite bikepacking route?
I like routes that give me a real sense of long-distance travel. I enjoy feeling a different climate as I cross mountain ranges and see the vegetation change. A great route should also feature interesting riding and great scenery. The Oregon Outback ticks all those boxes, traveling the length of Oregon, from the California border to the mighty Columbia River. There are incredible views and also some amazing climbs and descents in the Ochoco Mountains. However, the Outback is best ridden at speed otherwise it can be a bit monotonous.
For pure touring, I love the Volcano High Pass Super 600, with great camp spots, amazing vistas, and different ecosystems from the dry eastern slopes of the Cascades all the way to the Columbia River — plus climbing three great volcanos and many of the mountain passes that have inspired our tires.
There are great routes in so many places. I'm really curious about some of the courses Hailey Moore has been scouting in Colorado. I hope to explore those in the future.
Any closing remarks?
We are so lucky as cyclists today. When I started, cycling culture was almost entirely focused on road racing. Tires were narrow and hard. Components were designed for quick obsolescence. Someone even predicted that spoked wheels would soon be replaced by molded carbon wheels that aren't serviceable.
Today, cycling is better than ever. Gravel and all-road bikes are huge, and they really are a much better choice for most riders. Bikepacking has put the adventure back into cycling. And even road bikes now run 28 or even 32 mm tires, taking out the harshness, while keeping the fun. It's a great time to be a cyclist, and that makes me just so happy.
