Why wider tyres on road bikes are here to stay
We talk to the experts to get the skinny on why wider bike tyres are faster and always more comfortable and where tyre, wheel, and bike evolution may take us nextRoad bike tyre widths have ballooned in the last few years, and while a 23mm tubular tyre used to be praised as the fastest setup on earth, it's now been overtaken by 28mm tubeless tyres.
It's not only the simple frame clearance that differentiates modern bikes from their vintage siblings. Before carbon bikes became a thing, bikes were made very differently as a whole. > 10 tech trends to copy off the Tour de France pros — wide tyres, chain catchers and tubeless are in, slammed stems and narrow cassettes are out
"Firstly, I think wheel manufacturers played their part. It’s a bit like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg, did internal rim sections get wider first, and tyres followed suit, or was it the opposite that happened? Performance road tyres have always been available in 25mm and even 28mm, so the wider tyre choices for the initial new wave of wider rims were already on the shelf for cyclists to choose from in the early days of this trend.
Without pretending I excelled in physics, I asked the experts to explain why equipping my bike with wider tyres would make it faster - or more efficientThere are more factors than just rolling resistance, aerodynamics and vibrations to take into account, and this is perhaps best visualised in the below equation that is part of Zipp's Total System Efficiency document, in which the brand takes a deep dive into how the.
"As the volume decreases, the pressure increases, and vice versa. Then, for example, for a tyre with twice the internal volume as another tyre, the air inside will exert the same force at half the pressure of the first tyre. Vittoria uses the cobbled race stages as an example to explain the benefit, saying the cumulative effect of the bumps will add time to your ride, and you will also feel more fatigue from all that bouncing about, which will negatively impact your potential output for the rest of the ride.
Vittoria, on the other hand, believes that while current tyre technologies might be sufficient for many, others will be pushing the limits further. When you leave smooth surfaces, wider tyres offer even more significant advantages, as they allow for enhanced comfort and traction. In the UK, roads are filled with all sorts of holes and debris, and it definitely helps to have wider tyres in typical riding conditions.
Generally, hookless rim design offers the benefit of lighter weight, easier manufacturing and certain performance advantages; improved rolling and ride characteristics and, depending on the rim profile, some aerodynamic advantages. The downsides of hookless rims include the fact that the tyres need to be tightly fitting, but this then comes with the difficulty of actually getting them on.
"For hookless technology, for example, we need to adapt, but we can’t say we believe in it more than other technologies, especially given the issues consumers sometimes experience - not understanding the importance of respecting the lower pressures specified for hookless set-ups, for example. 650B x 42 is about the same OD as 700 x 25. When there's no real gain for a road wheel from going to a larger OD and as tyres get larger on 700C rims, at what point do we flip from 700C to 650B? I'm not sure but I loved that 650B bike.I built a pair of 650b wheels which are currently shod with G-One Speed 50mm tyres. Last summer in the brief period when there were dry trails - and it was brief - I was using that combination to easily switch between road and off-road.
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