Musical Chairs? Changing Specs



When we compare products we expect companies to provide us with accurate specs. It's not like we can go to a bike shop and weigh a ton of parts to double check the claimed weights. In my experience companies usually are honest. By and large the specs are accurate.

So I was a bit surprised when the Ultradynamico Cava tire we tested came in 30 grams heavier than the spec weight. Now 30 grams isn't a huge variation, but the 450 g weight listed on the Ultradynamico site (above) seemed very light for such a knobbly tire. Most other 650B x 47 tires are listed in the 500s. Only the Rene Herse tires push the performance envelope with weights in the lower 400s.

It's one thing to have some variability in the weight due to manufacturing tolerances, but it's something else to claim a close to record weight that turns out to be inaccurate. Recently the weight on the Ultradynamico web site was changed. It's now listed at 490 g (below). So my sample actually seems to be one of the lighter ones.



Honest mistake? Maybe. Still I find it a little suspicious when mistakes happen to favor the product. When WTB introduced 650B Road Plus with the Horizon, they a claimed a superlight 415 g weight. Everybody was excited to see a new high performance option in the market. After a few days the weight was updated to a middle of the road 515 g. Another honest mistake? For sure WTB got a lot of good press out of that mistake.

It's not just tires... A few years back a friend bought a White Industries VBC crankset because the Q factor was supposed to be 142 mm as per their website. He mounts the cranks, and they didn't feel right. So he measures the Q factor and it's 152 mm. Rather than a bit narrower than the road standard of 146-148, his cranks were a bit wider. When he contacted White Industries they said they mistakenly put the spec of a prototype on the site. 

Then he weighed his cranks. Turn out the weight on the site was also off by 35 g. And again his cranks were heavier than the spec.

With tires I can see some variability as the rubber coating can be thicker on one tire and thinner on another. But with cranks? They're made from metal, and it's not like there's a lot of variability with machining. And 35 g isn't trivial.

All this isn't the end of the world, but... Manufacturers should check the specs they publish to make sure they're accurate. Otherwise what's the point of publishing specs?


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