Diverge Gravel Bike: Tires & 27.5 Wheels?

Stock 700 x 38 Trigger Pro are a good gravel tire & roll well

Rando rides continue this month at the normal 3x per week. I've been replacing 1x per week with one of the local gravel routes. The Specialized Diverge Expert Gravel bike came with Specialized Trigger Pro 38mm tires. These roll very well on the pavement and work good on the gravel also. The extra width proved itself time after time on the soft stuff (Cauhilla Mtn. Recon, 9-City Gravel, Mixed Emotions, etc.).

My 2018 plan was to have a "road" wheelset with 700 x 35mm tires and a "gravel" set with 27.5" wheels and 47-50mm tires. New full set of rotors and a SRAM XD cassette to make swapping easy. I got things moving by ordering a set of 35mm Schwalbe G-ONE tires via eBay. Joe Morgan from The Bike Shop ordered in my matching SRAM rotors, SRAM 10-42 cassette and a set of WTB 47mm tires. Things were moving along under budget.

2018 Mavic CrossMax Pro: Dream wheelset but $$$$

In keeping with my overall theme this year: "one bike to do it all", I had researched the heck out of
27.5" wheels for the Diverge. This would enable fitting much wider tires on for those often "knarly" mtb/gravel routes of late. My ultimate answer was the Mavic CrossMax Pro, latest 2018 edition. Joe Morgan worked on this via his dealer connections and found: very limited production, none in the CA chain of distributors and only a slight discount (not deep discount I needed). These were out. Others that popped out were the FSA wheelsets, Stan's No Tubes and a few others. Looking to keep the wheel switching as smooth as possible, I spec'd in center-lock rotors, 100mm front thru axle, SRAM XD driver and 142mm rear thru axle. ( Same as came on the Diverge). Tough order.

Bad eBAY buy from Oregon Bicycle Works

After several months of probing, eBay had Oregon Bicycling Works. Specs looked great, ratings good, so I ordered a set that met all my parameters. Custom build would take 3 weeks and delivered to my door for $484. Not so. After various emails via eBay and broken delivery dates, I finally turned to eBay to resolve the dilemma thru customer service. Bingo! Money returned and I left a true-v. poor rating on eBay. After all was finished up, Oregon Bicycling Works sent me a email offering me $100 off the "already built" wheelset thru PayPal. I replied: "Yes, send me the wheelset and I'll pay after I receive them"! Can't figure out why they didn't take me up on the offer! (I think they were a Chinese front company under diecastmodels).

Schwalbe 35mm tires were delivered... but I never got them. Tracking showed that USPS delivered them. No signature or delivery photo on that. Either USPS slipped up (likely) or someone ripped them off (unlikely-because I was right there that day). Oh, well. Time for eBay to step in again. Had to file a police incident report and finally got my money refunded. Thanks to eBay again.

Joe Morgan @ The Bike Shop-Temecula, CA

So got another set of Schwalbe G-ONE 700 x 35mm from Joe @ The Bike Shop, saved a few bucks. Installed them on the Diverge using my last Stan's Sealant for the tubeless fix. Went right on with by homemade booster tank. After several hundred miles, seem to roll about the same as the wider Trigger Pros (38mm). Also offer a little "gravel recon" when necessary. Usually run 45/55psi for road riding. Nice and comfy.

Have all the goodies for my 27.5 wheelset, except the wheels! Finally opted to build my own and ordered all the spec'd parts from Joe @ The Bike Shop:
27.5" Wheel Build:

Front:
-    28 H Stans No tubes Crest MK3 Disc Brake 27.5" Black Rim 650B
-    Bitex BX 106 Front Red Centerlock Disc Hub, 100 x 12mm
-    SAPIM CX Ray J bend Black Bladed 14x21x14 ?
-    Two Cross Lacing
-    SAPIM Polyax 14mm 14 Gauge Black Brass Nipple
-    Weight 642 gm

Rear:
-    28 H Stans No tubes Crest MK3 Disc Brake 27.5" Black Rim 650B
-    Bitex BX 106 Rear  Red Centerlock Disc Hub, 12 x 142, SRAM XD
-    SAPIM CX Ray J bend Black Bladed 14x21x14 ?
-    Two Cross Lacing
-    SAPIM Polyax 14mm 14 Gauge Black Brass Nipple
-    Weight 744 gm

-    Lockrings




More next month
-randorides