Presta or Schrader valves on KTM

[barrycoll]

I have a 2012 KTM Macina Race which has been great.

My wife now has KTM Cross which she likes very much.

The Race has 26" wheels and one would/might expect Schrader valves as max pressure is 55 psi, but it has Presta valves.
The Cross, on the other hand, has 700c wheels and fairly high pressure Schwalbe Mondiale tyres where one would expect Presta valves, BUT it has Schrader ones fitted.

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation for this????

A pump with a Smart head solves the problem, but its all very strange

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

Hi.

We build 1500 individual bikes every day at the factory in Austria.

Each day, there will be a certain number of bikes from the range produced. ie this week we're building the first lot of road bikes etc etc.

As the valve type isn't crucial, I suspect they build with what they have. However in pretty much all cases, if its a "performance bike" offroad or onroad its Presta, if its a "leisure" bike its Schrader. This is really because its what our dealers and customers ask for.

Hope that helps.

 

[barrycoll]

Can random choice be the only 'reason'?

The Schrader valve needs a larger hole within the constraints of a thinner rim, so it can't really be a random choice by the assembly guys.
Why are 28" or 700c rims purchased with a S. fitting in the first place, and ditto, why are 26" low pressure rims drilled for Presta valves...............?
somebody at KTM must have thought it a good idea, or maybe it is customer feedback, as you say, but in my 55 years of buying new bikes, nobody has ever asked my opinion

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

Can random choice be the only 'reason'?

The Schrader valve needs a larger hole within the constraints of a thinner rim, so it can't really be a random choice by the assembly guys.

sorry, wasn't trying to say its random. As I said, if its a sport / performance bike, its generally Presta, if its a leisure / utility bike, its Schrader.

Why are 28" or 700c rims purchased with a S. fitting in the first place, and ditto, why are 26" low pressure rims drilled for Presta valves...............?

its not done on wheel size, because 29er MTB, 28" and 700c are actually all the same size rim. Also we don't do 26" really anymore.

somebody at KTM must have thought it a good idea, or maybe it is customer feedback, as you say, but in my 55 years of buying new bikes, nobody has ever asked my opinion

Its not even really a KTM call, because as you've said the rims are drilled, so certain rims can only use presta valves. Its only if its drilled for Scrader that we could build with either Valve. But most decent quality rims are only drilled for Presta.

And on the customer feedback thing its a bit of a triangle. The KTM r&d department is a few people. They ask the export / internal sales managers a question, who then ask all the countries (ie us), we then feedback what our dealers tell us, and our dealers will speak to their customers.

Sometimes the steps get missed out of the chain... ie by us reading direct customer feedback and input on forums like this one.

 

[RobF]

In the last 40 or so years, presta was fitted on 'racing' bikes.

They had narrow tyres/wheels, so drilling a slightly smaller hole in the rim didn't compromise the strength as much as a larger Schrader one.

Those racing bikes ran higher pressure, so presta became known as a high-pressure valve, although I'm not certain it can take a higher pressure than Schrader.

Racing bikes are now known as road bikes and nearly all still run presta.

Hybrids/mountain bikes with their wider tyres/wheels at lower pressure tend to use Schrader.

Although my 20" balloon tyred AVE came with presta.

Simple, really.

 

[JohnCade]

Schrader valves can take high pressure without any problems. I had Prestas on all my road bikes and ran them at 90 psi. But I had a MB a few years ago fitted with road tyres and Schrader valves and ran that at the recommended tyre maximum of 85 psi. It was almost as fast as my old road bikes like that.

 

[barrycoll]

To some extent, the new style of Smart pump make the choice of valve a bit irrelevant....and as has been said, pressures for both valves types can be substantial.
Many times in the past, I have tried to rationalise the different valves in our 2 bikes, by putting Presta tubes in Schrader drilled rims, so that I only had to carry one dedicated pump, and have also drilled out Presta rims to take Schrader tubes when new (but differing) bikes have dictated it
But the bike world is a 'dedicated follower of fashion", and old habits die hard