Stellenbosch, South Africa rests on the western cape nestled in the wine country about 30 minutes from Capetown.  It’s a small university town with with Dutch architecture, shady trees overhanging small streets and cyclists everywhere.  I’ve been here staying at a bed and breakfast with the Specialized team.  There are 10 of us here for training and official tire testing.  The group includes mechanics, team manager, athletes, and tire designers.  There are 6 different accents among us all.  It makes for really interesting conversation at the dinner table.

We spent the last three days at the mountain bike mecca of Jonkershoek.   It’s a forest preserve just near the town.  We loaded up the vans with bikes, lunch, cameras, notepads and tons of wheels and tires.  The tire designers were here and brought approximately 25 different tires to test over four days.  Conrad, Christoph and I were essentially the lab rats used for the testing.  Each tire was ridden by each rider on a technical single track loop that was about 1.5 miles long and around 300 feet of climbing per lap.  It doesn’t sound like that much until you multiply it by 25.  Each lap also consisted of sitting down with Frank, the tire designer, and rating the tires based on cornering, traction, and other criteria.  Frank took all the notes and took this information back to compare with his tests on rolling resistance, weight of the tires, etc.  It was all quite meticulous, but really tiring doing laps over and over again for the experiment.  The athletes doing the testing all come from different race backgrounds and have totally different riding styles and needs.  It was good training and a huge learning experience for me.  However,  I was really relieved when the last tire was completed.  For professional photos of the whole scientific experiment, check out the link below.