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Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

renehersecycles.com

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Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#221

Post by lmm »

idoubtit wrote: post #148
CalChris wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really rely on the Tour de France peloton for guidance. They're pretty conservative and, to a degree, ruled by fashion and sponsors.

Cycling teams spend tens of millions each year, with Ineos going over € 50m some time ago. Are they conservative? They benchmark their material in wind tunnels. Sometimes they bend the rules with high-tech material[^1]. There's no way a team competing in Tour de France would choose fashion over performance. [^1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/03/vortex-su...

The whole thing is a fashion show with very narrow limits of what the UCI wants people to do. The rules that ban e.g. the famous Lotus bike were explicitly stated as being meant to discourage wind tunnel testing. Fairings and recumbents have been banned for nearly 100 years because they're too much faster than UCI-style bikes.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#222

Post by hellisothers »

haswell wrote: post #12

This is one of the reasons I love the emergence of the "Gravel" category of bikes. They look and have geometry similar to a road bike, but they have enough clearance for nice fat gravel tires. I ride in Chicago (shitty roads, potholes & construction are everywhere), and love that I can put nice 38mm+ GravelKing Slick tires on the bike, and still have no problem keeping up with most road bikes. I've gotten funny looks…

Amen, 50mm on my Diverge.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#223

Post by hypnoscripto »

haswell wrote: post #12

This is one of the reasons I love the emergence of the "Gravel" category of bikes. They look and have geometry similar to a road bike, but they have enough clearance for nice fat gravel tires. I ride in Chicago (shitty roads, potholes & construction are everywhere), and love that I can put nice 38mm+ GravelKing Slick tires on the bike, and still have no problem keeping up with most road bikes. I've gotten funny looks…

Is that different from a "hybrid" bike?

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#224

Post by asdff »

londons_explore wrote: post #203
wiredfool wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve ridden their extra lights into some pretty ridiculous places, and commuted on them in a city, and they’re as trouble free as any other tire I’ve had. (In about 7k miles) I would recommend taking them on technical single track, but they rock for any sort of road riding. They’re certainly fine for the gravel I’ve seen. (And by trouble free, I mean no flats that I can blame on the tire or some damage to it. I’ve ha…

The real test for a city is how many hypodermic needles and smashed bottles can you ride over before being stranded by a puncture in a not-so-nice area of town at night...

This is why I ride gatorskins

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#225

Post by deviation »

Sleepytime wrote: post #199
taneq wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see those dual sports all the time and I don't see the attraction other than image. They're less agile on-road which is where they spend their time. At least they're not as silly as the trend of sticking knobbly tyres on road bikes for that "scrambler" look. If anything the opposite trend makes more sense, the motard / supermotard style where a competent off-road bike is retrofitted with road tyres and suspension t…

Dual sports can usually withstand a few drops with nothing more than new levers, parts are cheap, and maintenance is usually easier than street bikes. I almost always recommend a small dual sport as a first bike. If you get a used one for a decent price you can almost always sell it for what you paid for it even if it takes a couple of tumbles, and you can see if you like off-road too. >At least they're not as silly…

Would like to jump on this comment to agree with you.

A buddy of mine dropped his s1000rr coming out of a right turn at a traffic light and was up for around $8k in damages... He was only going ~10mph. I envy those who can fix their bikes after dropping them for $20 when they didn't even have frame sliders etc.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#226

Post by gregkerzhner »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #101

Cheap tires are slower. Reliable tires are slower. It's obvious from the pictures that the fatties they're testing are special, with paper thin skinwalls. I can totally see that a high performance fattie would be just as good as a high performance narrow tire. It's the inelastic deformation of the tire casing (and inner tube) that eats power. Unfortunately thin-walled high performance tires are also delicate. I've se…

I’ve been commuting on the extra light Rene Herse tires for about a year in the city and haven’t had a flat. They are set up tubeless though. They are a joy to ride and greatly improved the speed, comfort, and handling of the bike. I was hesitant to get them because most of my riding is on city roads with debree, but haven’t regretted them at all.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#227

Post by alanbernstein »

jmilloy wrote: post #219

I think folks might be interested to consider some of the other myths and tests in the series, such as: * Titanium is ligther than steel * Fenders slow you down * Stiffer frames are faster * Disc brakes work better than rim brakes * Higher tire pressure is faster * Bigger wheels roll faster https://www.renehersecycles.com/category/myths-in-cycling/ For more nuanced tire testing and results, check out these two more r…

These are interesting articles, but in https://www.renehersecycles.com/myth-12-disc-brakes-work-bet..., it just says outright "Many rim brakes for wide tires are too weak to do this quickly, so in the rain, you end up with almost no braking power at all." It's not a myth, it's just conditionally true.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#228

Post by elihu »

> These suspension losses are mostly absorbed in the rider’s body. Imagine a bean bag that drops on the ground without bouncing back – all the energy is absorbed by friction between the beans. The human body works similarly. Studies by the U.S. Army found that the more discomfort vibrations cause, the more energy is being absorbed. And the amount of energy that a vibrating human body can absorb is significant – the U.S. Army’s study measured up to 2000 Watt!

Huh, that's a lot. About 3 horsepower. I don't know what the test setup for that is like, but I'm glad I wasn't the test subject.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#229

Post by dharmab »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #170
ultrarunner wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that "designed for [off] road mix" is pretty charitable. A 500-pound dirt bike with a comfortable seating position wins the tough-aesthetics competition, but off road performance is meager at best. I built decent off-road skills on a DL1000, but the weight was always such a liability as to make it impracticable. I moved to a smaller and lighter bike and have more fun, but 99% of people I met in Arizona…

Well there's shades of grey between paved tarmac and proper off road. Not a motorcyclists but I assume these adventure/dual sport bikes perform much better over say unsealed roads, and are at least workable on fire roads.

Fire roads are easy mode on an ADV bike. They can do double track quite well too. They start to struggle in mud, sand and single track.

Re: Myths in cycling: wider tires are slower

#230

Post by ehnto »

CyclingAbout has some great experiments in a similar vein. You can scroll to the experimemts section here:

https://www.cyclingabout.com/article-directory/

He has a great one about aerodynamics which touches on tire aero as well as luggage and clothing aero. Most of the perspective is around bike touring but it's a fantastic resource. He has dozens of guides too and a comprehensive YouTube touring channel. He does all this stuff while perpetually touring for years, so you know it's from real world experience on the bike.

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