After several months of Knard, Knard and nothing but Knard on the front of my either my
Lynskey Pro29 SL, fits nicely in the Black sheep fork, for everything short of the
Maah Daah Hey after a rain or on my old Ferrous and Switchblade fork combo (plenty of room there). Except for some railbed riding.
Click here for my
First Look at the Knard.
Click here for
Follow Up
The Knard Rolls pretty good on the
Velocity's Blunt 35. I am running it
tubeless, but I was pretty conservative on the pressure and only ran it 17.5, just 1.5 psi lower than my 2.35 Ikon. I dropped another half PSI when I got back near the car at
Games Loop/UWF Pensacola Florida. It was great in the sugar sand of course. Slid out on some fresh pine needles. Usually I could feel it slide and hook back up though. I had to keep it weighted, more on top of the front wheel, kinda like riding a hardtail with a big fork up front.
As I slowly lowered the pressure, like half a PSI each ride, I had to ride on top of the front end less. I worked down to 14 PSI. That was just starting to feel more shock absorption at 14. I stayed here a while, as I am concerned about breaking a bead and rolling the Knard off of the Blunt 35.
I settled at 13.5 psi, getting just the occasional bottom out clank. I weigh around 200 lbs. No scale in the
bus so not 100% sure.
Now I always break something at
Stokes, Stokes has my number, you could say, Stokes is pretty much all rock garden, even though rock gardens are usually my forte. My Stan's sealant was getting thin I guess. I burped or punctured and was able to put the Knard/Blunt 35 up a few times, but ended up putting in a tube.
Back at a compressor, I removed the tube, added some Stan's and reinflated and it has been good for a couple months now.
Wet rocks seem to be the Knards nemesis. Particularly on technical rocky climbs, the Knard hunts around a bit, sometimes finding the wrong line, accentuated on a single speed.
Having a 29er+ up front and a weekend on a fat bike, got me jonesin for a 29er+ rear as well. The
Surly Krampus and the
Carver Titanium Gnarvester, if you guys are listening :-) Lynskey said they could build me a custom one. A guy can Dream.
My Lynskey was down for a while, when I got her back together, the bike's handling felt a little slower than I remember with the Knard. The Ferrous has slightly steeper head angle, and maybe I got used to that. I gave the 2.35 Ikon another try for comparison and it just worked better with my Lynskey geometry.
Up to now I have not said much about the Blunt 35s. To be blunt, they have given me pretty much zero reason to worry about them, they simply do a great job of holding the bead of that big tire tubelessly. I am super happy with the Velocity tubeless rim strip and valve! As a system it is great, give the 3 inch tire a nice profile and is strong and reasonably light, particulary compared to the Surly Rabbit Hole.
No apparent damage,even after numerous soft bottom outs, usually running 13.5 psi, Last ride, I must have had a puncture or burp and was down to 9.5 PSI and Blunt still held the Knards bead!
