The one time my TaiwanColnago-riding friend was intrigued by wider tires, he got some new 700x25's right before our ride, and 1 minute after putting them on, he found that they cleared the seatstay bridge by about 0.2 mm! But he otherwise likes his bike and likes to be fast and connects the fastness to the bike frame and components, and so much for caring about wider tires.
On Jan 2, 2014, at 6:56 AM, Tim McNamara wrote: > So far no one I have ridden with has been intrigued about wider tires. Maybe > I need to find people with more curiosity! :-) > > Your blog mentions the shorter contact patch of wider tires. A decade or so > ago, one of the participants on rec.bicycles.tech made images of the contact > patches of various width tires. What was striking was that he showed little > difference in the shape or size of the contact patch, although perhaps his > range of tire sizes was too small. It would be interesting to repeat this > with good scientific rigor. > > Many wider tires, of course, do roll slower compared to skinny tires. Tire > manufacturers tend to put thicker rubber on wider tires for some reason, > perhaps marketing assumptions about the buyers of wider tires, which > increases hysteresis; casings for wider tires tend to be made with heavier > thread for reasons due to physics, which may increase hysteresis; and of > course wider tires with heavier casings and thicker tread will weigh more and > may affect the responsiveness of the bike to rider input. High quality > performance oriented wide tires, such as the ones Jan promotes, are a much > different product. Even my wide-ish mid-level 26 x 1.25 Paselas roll very > well compared to my 700 x 25s. > > P.S.- my wife gave me the Rene Herse book for Christmas. I am 100 pages in > and enjoying it very much, although perhaps the title should have been "Rene > Herse and most of the history of French cyclotourisme." I have always > enjoyed the historical articles in BQ and this book has that in spades. It > is big enough that reading it in bed is self-limiting! > > Tim > > On Jan 2, 2014, at 8:21 AM, Jan Heine <hein...@earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Even though most RBW folks may not care all that much about going fast, it's >> still nice to know that a wider tire doesn't roll any slower. We summarized >> the data in our blog here: >> >> http://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/tires-how-wide-is-too-wide/ >> >> If anything, it may help persuade those we meet on our rides, who look at >> our bikes and are intrigued by the idea of a more comfortable bike with >> wider tires, but are afraid they won't be able to keep up with their friends >> if they add 5 or 10 mm to their tire width. >> >> Happy New Year! >> >> Jan Heine >> Editor >> Bicycle Quarterly >> www.bikequarterly.com >> >> Follow our blog at www.janheine.wordpress.com >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "RBW Owners Bunch" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. James Warren jimcwar...@earthlink.net - 700x55 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
