The way I wrapped my head around it is that 3 ( at least ) different phenomena are involved; tire internal friction, tire contact patch ( external friction ), and vibration damping of the entire assembly ( Tires, Bike, Human). At very low pressure tire internal friction is high and tire contact patch is large but vibration is absorbed at the tire ( and not transmitted up into the assembly). Within moderate pressure there are sweet spots where the balance optimizes for low rolling resistance and low levels of vibration passing up into the assembly ( fast and comfortable ) . At high moderate no one is happy ( tire is still flexing, contact patch is still relatively large, and a lot of the vibration is passing up to be damped by the human in the assembly). At very high pressure internal friction is very low ( no flex in the tire ), external friction is very low ( contact patch has become tiny ), and vibration is transmitted almost directly into the assembly. The balance is out of whack but favors low rolling resistance.
What Jan has found is that with good tire design and half an eye on the pressures we can enjoy a large sweet spot where a low work load, a comfortable chair AND high productivity reside. > > > > > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
