If you want superior cornering grip and the ability to go fast even when the roads get rough, choose wider tires. More information is here. Jan Heine. The bar tape was made by Fujitoshi. It was relatively thin leather tape, which many riders liked. Unfortunately, the company no longer exists. Hi, Jan Can you tell me the total diameter of a Switchback Hill? That will be a tight fit. This is especially evident in mud, rough surface, and for a light cyclist 60 kg.
The ideal bike for wide tires has a front-end geometry that is designed for the wider tires, usually by reducing the geometric trail.
Then, a bike with wide tires can handle the same as a bike with narrower tires. At some point, tire performance must get worse as tires get wider. For tire performance, the casing construction is more important than all other factors. My long-term average speed on my Surly Pugsley, with knobby 3. The rolling resistance of tires increases significantly with cold temperatures. For the same reason, tires have less grip in cold weather. Of course, one other factor may be the human body performing best at a certain temperature.
And then there is the added clothing that constricts your movements. All I hear is wider is faster, but when does a wider tire actually become slower? At some point tires have diminishing returns based on how wide they are, otherwise we would be all racing on fat bike tires on the road.
Good question! What we know is that up to 25 mm, tires get faster as they get wider. So 19 mm is probably the slowest you can ride. On rough roads, they are faster, on a super-smooth wooden track, they may be a bit slower… For pro racers, it makes sense to use 25 mm tires for most races. The roads are smooth, they are lightweight, and they use tubulars anyhow.
And if you lose 5 seconds up the minute climb a big mountain pass, that can make the difference between getting dropped or staying with the bunch. For the cobblestone races like Paris-Roubaix, they already are using much wider tires. There, it seems that the pros are limited by the bikes and tires they can get. Now imagine if the rider had put out their max power on a frame with better performance and had been riding supple tires designed for speed — the difference would have been even greater.
When you say a 25mm tire is as fast as a 54mm tire, are you talking on average paved flat roads? We tested on very smooth asphalt — the apron of an outdoor velodrome. As to the actual on-the-road speed of your bike, there are many factors — see also the previous comment about climbing speed. When I raced, my race wheels used superlight rims, extra-thin spokes and were shod with cotton tubulars. On my training wheels, I had stiff, kevlar-belted tires.
Regarding tire weight, consider that you need a smaller wheel with the wider tire to keep the handling the same and to fit it into a frame. Even for two tires, that difference is only g, or half a water bottle. Deduct the smaller, lighter rims and shorter spokes, and the difference is even smaller. And the worst argument would be getting dropped, evidence be damned.
When it comes to speed, engine size matters a lot more than tire size. You often pose the question of why it has taken so long for the cycling community to realize that wider is not slower. I get that. But, I have not seen a good explanation as to why cyclists started riding narrower pneumatic tires in the first place. Are there reasons beyond the perception that the narrower tires are faster based on feel? I suspect it was indeed the placebo effect of the increased vibrations.
Thanks for your informative article. The suppleness of the casing has to have a big role to play in this. It would be interesting to see an article that covered both topics and either prove or dispel the idea of the higher the TPI, the better the tyre. I think it would probably prove a big bag tyre with high TPI is the best.
You are absolutely right — casing performance is the most important part of how a tire performs. As usual, thanks for pointing this out. More rubber on the road is better than less while less pressure is better than more. And with bicycles, the tires are pretty much the only suspension one has.
Every motor sport that races on rubber tires uses the biggest ones the rules allow and puts in as little air pressure as they can get away with. Looking forward to the other 11 myths being destroyed.
Air has mass. A tire with psi will weigh more than when it has 30 psi. I doubt that the actual difference is much of a factor, but there is a difference. Yes, air does have mass, but it is pretty negligible. Air at room temperature and sea level pressure weighs about 1 g per liter. A B tire at 42 mm width inflated to 3 bar holds about 8 liters of air more than it displaces.
To make things more confounding, before ISO standards, every country and most bike manufacturers had their own way of sizing tires. This created a situation in which same-size tires would be known by different numbers in different countries.
To make matters worse, different-size tires that were not interchangeable were often marked with the same number. The traditional system of sizing tires was based on the measurement of the outside diameter of a tire. This would typically be measured in inches 26, 27, etc. As bike riding styles and tire manufacturing evolved, the measurements of the tires and rims became even more confusing. Their diameter sizing indicated the size of the rim, not the outer diameter of the tire.
The ISO adopted this system for use around the world. The ISO tire size is described by two numbers — the first number defines the width of the tire in millimeters, and the second number defines the diameter of the tire around the inside edge the BSD , also in millimeters.
As an example, an ISO size describes a tire that is 25 millimeters wide with a bead diameter of millimeters. The ISO size will either be printed on the tire sidewall or molded into the rubber.
The BSD is the most important measurement that determines whether a given tire and rim will be compatible. Unlike with the tire diameter, bicycle wheels can handle a range of different widths. So, it is not absolutely necessary to replace your tires with one with the exact same width.
As long as your bike has adequate clearance to handle a larger size, there are some advantages to getting a tire that is a little wider. A wider tire will have a larger contact patch.
It will provide better traction, less rolling resistance, slightly improved resistance to flats, and a much more comfortable ride. For most popular tires, there are a wide variety of widths available. In the past, most rims designed for road bikes were relatively narrow, with an interior width of. These narrower 26" tires can be a great choice for riders interested in riding their mountain bikes on the road.
If you have any questions about choosing tires to meet your needs, contact us at or [email protected]. We are committed to delivering outstanding value and service to our customers, every day. Try us today to see why so many of our customers come back again and again. Some exceptions apply.
See Shipping for details. Want to save on all your Bike Tires Direct purchases? Sign up here for exclusive discount offers. Join our Email List. WISH 0. Gift Certificates New Arrivals. Note that for off-road tires, the knobs aren't usually counted in the mm size but definitely do affect whether or not the tires fit on your bike.
If your bike has C wheels, you could convert to B. The wheel radius is only 25mm less, so most things work the same, but you have that much more room for tires and fenders. In the eight years since this question was written, road-style bikes with fatter, grippier tyres for off-road use have become pretty common. They're usually called "gravel bikes" or "adventure bikes". Plenty of companies are making bikes of this type: essentially, a relaxed-geometry road-ish frame with enough tyre clearance for something like 40mm tyres for use on ground that's, say, as rough as a hiking trail but not so rough that you'd need a mountain bike.
For our small expedition with our bicycles in Patagonia we invested into slightly larger tires and more durable ones we choose the Schwalbe Marathon XR in C, the widest our bike frame could accomodate.
It did quite a change, you hear more the tire noises, it helps better in muddy terrain and feels more confortable in gravel roads or in the fields. However, it's not really good in sandy parts or when the gravels are too big or too loose. Overall it was a good and needed change, it would have been much less confortable to ride down in Patagonia with out those wider tires.
If you decide to change yours, follow freiheit advice or go pay a visit to a local bicycle shop. It's not always possible to put different tires because of the rim, brakes or frame. So, it depends what are the height and width of the fork. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?
Learn more. Larger tires on a road bike Ask Question. Asked 11 years ago.
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