Thanks for posting this, Mick. Very intesting!
This is what I've been saying for years,
right here on the Thorn Forum:
"...the bike rides and corners like a road bike, except with much, much more grip on dry roads. The contact patch is huge, and more rubber on the road results in more traction. The lower tire pressure means the wheel doesn’t skip over surface irregularities, so it never loses traction. It’s amazing how far you can lean over on these tires without even getting close to the limits of tire adhesion. (That is why racecars have extremely wide tires.)"
Except that my experience is that even on wet and slippery roads (slurry, anyone) the grip and control of low pressure balloons leave narrow (or medium-wide, which is where my experience actually lies), high pressure tyres for dead. The roadholding appears, as Heine says, to be limitless, and the handling is superior. (Roadholding is the bike's behaviour on the limit, generally speaking its predictability, handling is recovery beyond that limit or in cases of upset, like hitting a broken road verge when already on the limit).
My tyres are the Schwalbe Big Apple Liteskin lightweight (!) folders without the wire bead, so they're pretty supple (which doesn't mean they feel soft to the hand, but you can grasp the effect of the flexible sidewall on both rough roads and fast but twisty good surfaces), which is the marketing distinction (unique selling point, USP) Heine is claiming for these tyres which, presumably, he'll market commercially. It is worth noting that my Liteskins have 8000km/5000m on them, with the rear showing signs of wear; they'll easily make 10k (or more) before I need to replace one tyre; so they've been pretty economical. Zero flats, of course.
However, if Heine means by "supple" something more, for instance that the extra flex has been built into the rolling surface by removing/not using a protection band, or that the sidewalls have been made thinner than the already known-vulnerable Paselas, I wouldn't want these tyres. And I don't see people who switched from the Paselas to various types of fat touring Schwalbe Marathons, according to what they consider comfortable enough, switching back to boutique Paselas made less lasting but more expensive than the standard kind, except perhaps for racing.
If not, if Heine's version is at least as puncture-resistant as the standard Pasela, I can easily see fast tourers, the drop-bar crowd, who I suspect largely have roadie, mendalottapunctures backgrounds, considering this one a prime multifunction tyre. It could be a nice marketing niche for Heine.
Plenty of Thorns on the road with space for these tyres, and upmarket German bikes generally are capable of taking fat tyres. Interesting that Heine should start with 26in tyres, indicative of a trend, I think.
