After nearly 8 years of riding my Handsome XOXO as an all rounder, I recently wanted to try the bike with some larger tires. I was originally looking at Rene Herse Rat Trap Pass Tires as we’ve enjoyed them on the tandem but decided I wanted to go a bit more dirt oriented. The Humptulips Ridge is the comparable knobby tire in the RH line and I’ve had a good experience with the very similar Juniper Ridge I use on the front of the Wolverine so that seemed like a natural choice, but not being sure that I’d stick with the larger tired, fenderless setup I wanted a lower entry cost than RH tires have.
I found that Continental Race King Racesport 2.2s were lighter than Humptulips Extra Lights and quite a bit cheaper. Mine were ~463g and ~481g and measured ~51mm on CR-18 rims @ ~25psi. Our tandem has RTPs on wider Areoheat rims measuring ~52mm. The Race Kings are a very tall tire and there is only 6-7mm clearance at the fork crown. They are fast and smooth and don’t make too much noise or feel draggy on pavement. I took them out for a test ride and kept wanting to go just a bit further returning home 11 miles later.
It’s probably no surprise that since swapping tires on my XOXO from 1.8s + fenders to 2.2s it’s been seeing more dirt use. It’s a really great mixed surface bike, which is something I knew before but the tire change brings that to the foreground.
So I’ve gone ahead with a few more changes to embrace the ATB nature of the XOXO – changing the crank from 34/48 to 30/46 chainrings (using a set of BikinGreen matched chainrings designed for 110 BCD cranks), and the 32t cassette for a 34t (still 7 speed). The RD was changed to a silver Altus RD-M310, mostly because it’s silver but also because it tucks up a bit higher than the Acera I had on there.
In order to work with 110 BCD crank arms, which traditionally allow a 34t minimum chainring, the BikinGreen rings are offset inward a bit so the chain doesn’t contact the spider. A benefit of this is that the 46t can make use of the full cassette, and for road riding I mostly use it as a 1x geared bike. The 30t small ring is great for off road use or as bail out gear for really steep road climbs.
I also changed the Shimano indexed DT shifters for some used Rivendell Silver DT shifters – no more “clunk” on rear shifts, just smooth and silent (when I get the shift right).
An old Avocet Touring saddle, found on a Motobecane Nomade that was being trashed, has so far turned out to be a good fit on this bike but I’ll need more miles on it to know for sure.
The Carradice Barley saddle bag was moved to my townie and replaced with a handlebar bag of similar capacity – freeing up the saddle and making it easy to shift weight over the rear tire on trail downhills (important with the steep angles on this bike).
I’ve really been enjoying this new setup on the XOXO and have done several longer mixed surface exploration type rides. Given that the Wolverine is a better all road / gravel bike (and is now setup with 1×9 gearing and fenders) I’ll likely keep the XOXO as an ATB for some time.
