~rene-herse-cycles | Bookmarks (52)

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 […]

Demand for the new 700C x 44 Corkscrew Climb semi-slicks has far outpaced our expectations. We have sold out of the Endurance casing, and other models are running low. A small quantity with Endurance casings is on the way to Seattle—we expect them in 7-10 days. We are now taking pre-orders for these, so you […]

A short trip to Japan, to visit family, friends and suppliers, was a welcome break from Seattle’s winter. It’s always fun to immerse ourselves into the vibrant cycling culture that inspires us in so many ways. One highlight of recent trips to Japan is riding with Makoto Ayano, the founder of Japan’s most popular cycling […]

We returned from Japan just a couple of weeks ago, but so much has happened since then that it almost seems like we were there during the last century. With this onslaught of news, it can be hard to maintain our sanity. In difficult times, we must find our inner strength—by focusing on who we […]

We developed the 700C x 31 mm Orondo Grade tires for riders like Ted King and Brennan Wertz, who had grown to love supple Rene Herse tires on their gravel and all-road bikes, and now wanted to experience the same comfort and speed on their road bikes. And they wanted a tubeless tire. What sounded […]

We received another shipment of chainrings, and now we have all Rene Herse cranks, in all configurations, back in stock. That includes 15 different crankarms, 26 different chainrings, custom chainring and crank bolts, pedal washers and more. Why do we go through all the trouble to offer so many combinations—and then custom-assemble them to order? […]

Early on Wednesday morning local time in Morocco, Marei Moldenhauer won the 1,300 km Atlas Mountain Race in record time. For 4 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, Marei rode and pushed her bike over the rough dirt tracks that criss-cross the Atlas and Anti-Atlas Mountains, climbing more than 30,000 m (100,000 ft) in the […]