First Look: Specialized Roubaix Pro 32mm Tire
Wide is in: bottom bracket shells, axle spacing, rims, mountain bike handlebars and, of course, tires. The Specialized Roubaix 2Bliss Ready just landed at my place. Specialized calls it a “30/32mm” tire, which means it’s a 30mm tread on a 32mm casing.
It’s tubeless-ready, in a 120TPI casing with minimal, fast-rolling tread. Two flat-protection technologies are utilized: Blackbelt, a woven strip under the tread, and Endurant, which is what Specialized calls its overlapped, three-layer casing. The price is $40, and the weight on my scale is 374 grams—that’s pretty light for a big tire.
RELATED: The Specialized Dolce Evo Is Ready to Take On Any Terrain
However, it's also a huge tire and won’t fit on most modern road bikes. Surprisingly, it fit on the Ridley Fenix SL review bike in my garage with center-bolt Shimano Dura-Ace brakes. It barely fits, but it’s rideable—in dry conditions. In muddy conditions, we expect debris would get picked up and jam between the tire, fork, and brake of a bike with modest clearance. On a bike with larger-than-average clearance, the tire is safe for wet use.
This tire is most likely to fit bikes equipped with disc, cantilever, or long-reach calipers.
The Takeaway: The Specialized Roubaix 2Bliss Ready is a nifty tire because it’s light, fast-rolling, tubeless-ready, and has some puncture protection. I look forward to riding it—once I get a bike in for review that fits it a little better.
You Might Also Like
