~rene-herse-cycles | Bookmarks (49)

This is just a quick notice that we’ll do the last mailing of Bicycle Quarterly 87 next week: One more chance to start your subscription with this exciting edition. Some readers may wonder: Why do we print a paper magazine in this digital age? Especially when we also publish the online RH Journal that you’re […]

A few days ago, a message from Andy Kessler landed in my inbox. The subject line said: “Your tires rock!” The message itself just contained a photo, of an unpainted carbon bike equipped with our Corkscrew Climb semi-slicks. Andy is of course co-owner of the iconic bicycle brand OPEN, together with Gerard Vroomen. We’ve been […]

Congratulations to Jenna Rinehart for an excellent race at this year’s first American race in the UCI Gravel World Series. Placing second at the Highlands Gravel Classic in Fayetteville, AR, Jenna also qualified for the UCI Gravel World Championships in the Netherlands later this year. After the race, Jenna reported: “I came to defend my […]

My 1992 Subaru Legacy gained some unexpected notoriety when it was stolen and recovered thanks to Instagram and the vigilance of a BQ reader who saw it parked by the roadside while riding to work. Thank you, Zach! It’s hard to describe how relieved I was to get my car back—it’s really special to me. […]

Ted King isn’t just one of the most successful gravel racers of all time—he also hosts the popular podcast ‘King of the Ride.’ In the most recent episode, he invited me to talk about, well, everything and anything related to making your bike faster. We explore why aero socks are marginal gains at best, and […]

For quite a while now, the Rene Herse 700×44 Snoqualmie Pass has been the fastest wide tire (>32 mm) on www.bicyclerollingresistance.com, a popular website that tests tire performance. Every month, they test new tires—recently Pirelli’s latest P Zero Race TLR SpeedCore that now comes in a 40 mm width—but none roll as fast as the […]

The days are getting longer here in Seattle, but one thing never seems to change: We’re too optimistic with our ride plans. More than once have we returned home as twilight was fading into complete darkness. That’s when a visibility vest comes in handy. Especially in the city, with so many lights and distractions, a […]

Today’s Paris-Roubaix promises to be a gripping race. (Don’t worry, no spoiler from us!) Will Tadej Pogačar add the ‘Queen of the Classics’ to his incredible palmarès? Or will the ‘Hell of the North’ elude yet another champion’s dreams? The cobbles of northern France are as bumpy as ever, but gone are the days when […]

If you’ve followed gravel racing, you’ve noticed that some of the biggest and most prominent teams have been riding on Rene Herse tires. This wasn’t a paid sponsorship agreement—these teams simply chose Rene Herse tires to give their riders the best chance at winning. That’s how Lauren de Crescenzo’s Cinch Racing team and the Mazda […]

Tubeless or TPU tubes? Cyclists choose tubeless setups mainly for one reason: The sealant inside the tire seals small punctures caused by glass shards and tiny steel wires. (For mountain biking, a reduction of pinch flats is even more important. For road and most gravel cycling, wide tires have made pinch flats less of an […]

Today’s post was going to be about a new product we’re introducing—but we need to hold off while we recalculate our prices. You’ve probably seen the news: Virtually all imports into the United States will be subjected to additional, steep import taxes, also called tariffs. The goal is to radically re-orient how manufacturing is done, and […]

Many riders love our new 700C x 44 mm Corkscrew Climb semi-slicks. They’ve have been so popular that supply can’t always keep up with demand, and they’ve been out of stock for a few weeks. We just received another shipment. All back-orders have been sent out, and limited quantities of all casings are in stock […]

In a surprise move, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) today handed down its latest technical rule: Effective immediately, road bikes are limited to a maximum tire width of 31 mm. The new rule has been rumored for a long time. As more pro racers started using 30 mm tires, there was growing concern that we […]

Last year, we published our Scientific Guide to Choosing Gravel Tires. It was a summary of our and others’ research into what makes tires fast, grippy and reliable—and not an advertorial for Rene Herse tires. (We figure that our tires speak for themselves…) It’s been one of our most popular posts. Science doesn’t stand still, […]

We’re starting a new program, trading no-longer-functional Ergopower levers for brand-new Rene Herse tires. We’ll rebuild the levers into pure analog brake levers. We plan to offer the refurbished levers in our program. That’s less wasteful and better for the environment than developing new brake levers from scratch. Why analog brake levers? At Rene Herse […]

It’s no secret that prices are expected to go up again in the near future. There are three main reasons for this: Here at Rene Herse Cycles, prices for tires and components have not gone up in years. In fact, the prices of SON generator hubs and lights from Germany even went down, because of […]

We started making components because nobody made what we needed for our rides. Way back, it started with supple, wide tires. I still remember the incredulous look of the engineers at one supplier when we showed them the specs for the tires we wanted to make. “What kind of rider will want ultra-fast 54 mm-wide […]

Zipp latest gravel wheels, introduced last year, went into uncharted territory: The 303 XPLR rims measure a whopping 40 mm wide. Their inner width is 32 mm. According to the ETRTO standards that govern rim/tire compatibility, rims that wide are suitable for 58 to 71 mm-wide tires. And yet Zipp suggests running tires as narrow […]

Today’s bikepacking races like the Tour Divide or the Atlas Mountain Race, but also Unbound XL and the Arkansas High Country Race, share the ethos of randonneuring events: They are self-supported long-distance rides. They include equal parts of adventure and performance. And they do without the sole focus on winners that you find in racing. […]

Today we celebrate all the women who have inspired us—in cycling, in life, in the world. Here are a few of the women who have been part of the Rene Herse family—both literally and figuratively—since the beginning in 1938. Marcelle Herse (right) was not just a strong cyclist herself, but also an essential part to […]

Tubeless is great for many applications, but it comes with the hassle of having to top up sealant frequently. If you don’t ride on debris-strewn highway shoulders (where the sealant will seal small punctures from glass and steel wires) and if your tires are wide enough (so you don’t get pinch flats), TPU tubes are […]

This is not a political journal. However, there are rare times when current events give us a responsibility to speak out. This post represents my personal views, not those of our company or its employees. —Jan In the current situation, it can be easy to feel discouraged. Whatever our political opinions, the wholesale dismantling of […]

This is just a short note that the Corkscrew Climb semi-slicks are back in stock in all casings. Demand for the new tires has been so great that they ran out before production could catch up. Quantities are still limited, so there is a limit of 4 tires per order. That way, riders and racers […]

Brennan Wertz started the 2025 race season on a high note: The reigning U.S. Gravel national champion won the 90-mile (150 km) Huffmaster Hopper in northern California. A punchy mixed-surface race with 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of climbing near the Snow Mountain Wilderness, the Huffmaster Hopper is known for its technical descents. The race has […]