I appreciate sites like this where they make an effort to systematically review products rather than just giving a superficial impression or repeating PR. https://www.notebookcheck.net/ or https://dpreview.com/ are also good examples.
They are also a testament to the dazzling amount of options that mature industries seem to produce.
> The Schwalbe Racing Ray is optimized for front tire use and is a bit less aggressive than the Schwalbe Rocket Ron, […] Schwalbe suggests pairing the Racing Ray with the Racing Ralph (read review), which is optimized for use on the rear wheel.
> The Racing Ray used to be only available with the Addix SpeedGrip compound, which [is] grippier than their Addix Speed compound. We just noticed Schwalbe also released a Super Race version with the Addix Speed compound somewhere in the last few years, and we're not sure about the front wheel claims for that version.
As a cyclist, this is a situation in which I find this type of reviewing close to worthless to be honest. Throwing a tire on a metal roller is very far removed from riding unless you're on a velodrome or perfectly maintained road. This has led to a lot of push-back in the cycling community against this site and its findings. Their testing methodology, especially before they made recent changes, largely will prefer skinny, highly inflated tires. But in the real world, everyone is finding fatter, less inflated tires are faster, because in the real world compliance (smoothly rolling over every road variation, rock or pebble) is faster.
To add to this, unless you are actually competitively cycling (you probably aren't) this sort of thing makes pretty much no difference for someone that is using cycling for transport.
It's a bit like obsessing over the lightest frame possible. Yeah, we can get a 1lb frame made of space materials but at the end of the day it's basically something that will reduce a cyclist's average speed by like 0.1mph.
For anyone doing anything other than competitive cycling, comfort is far more important than anything else and fat wheel bikes with steel frames are damn comfortable to ride on.
A relatively heavy bike with giant wheels might take your average speed down .5 or even 1 mph. You almost certainly won't notice it.
I'm not sure if steel frames make a significant difference in comfort. If we measure comfort as deflection or vibration, then tire choice will have orders of magnitude more importance. When you have two springs in series, the combined spring constant is dominated by the weaker spring.
I race on a carbon frame with 30mm tires, and commute on a steel frame with 38mm tires for what it's worth.
Bike weight is irrelevant on flat roads. We should be obsessing over Watts/gram of drag, not Watts/kg if you're not a climber
I think it’s a little different than bike weight, which makes very little difference for anything other than lifting it onto a rack or taking it up apartment stairs. Rolling resistance makes slightly more difference than that.
Maybe it's just me getting old but... as a scientist I love technical reviews however I care more and more about feeling that real world performance. If a tire feel fast, it's what I will go for. My favorite road bike is my 12yo CAAD10 because I just love how it feels and the geo is perfect for me. This kind of thinking has been mostly phased out of the reviews and the design lately while the engineering has been optimized to a point almost all new bikes (and also true with cars IMO) feels more or less the same. Nowadays, I value character over numbers.
Yeah. Between two brands of racing tyre the difference may be small but between racing tyres and some mountain bike tyres there's a very noticeable difference.
What type of difference did you notice? I switched from a stock Bontrager tires to Continental Grand Prix which are supposed to be high end and didn’t really notice too much of a difference.
Try using the Silca Tire Pressure calculator set to "Gravel Roads". This will give a safe PSI recommendation with a nod to comfort. I would ride 28mm GP4000s around 75 psi on a training ride with lots of chip seal
I'm in the mountain / touring category. My tires are more than 2.1" wide. Anyway, acceleration was faster and they kept on rolling when I stopped pedaling (because a traffic light was coming next).
I always enjoy those conversations with middle aged cyclist who fill up their jersey and then talk about how they shaved off 200g somewhere. Dude if you didn't drink all those after ride beers you could shave off a lot more than 200g. This is why I refuse to wear jerseys. Ahahaha.
You don't have to be on the Pro Tour to benefit from aero gains with narrower tires. Even moderately fit people usually can sustain 15 mph on flat, at which point aero gains start to matter. Even more for hilly terrain where you can easily pick up over 20 mph on descents. The wider tires roll more efficient at lower psi (when you have to air down for comfort). But roughness of pavement road usually doesn't require less than 60 psi, and above 60 psi the rolling resistance of wider tires is about the same as narrower tires, but watt savings from aero can be significant.
I got a gravel bike to replace my old road bike because everyone was raving about it, and I absolutely hated riding it. Sure, at slow recreational speeds, it was more comfortable, but when getting places, it just didn't roll as well down hills, making me having to pedal more over extended times to get uphill.
Now I ride an aero road bike with TT bars, with 28c tires, and even when running them at 60-70 psi for rough pavement, the aero gains from the narrower wheels are significant, as I can pick up speeds over 30 mph on some descents which carry me way further uphill.
It depends on what kinds of roads you ride on. If you're always riding nice smooth asphalt, then yes, high pressure narrow tires are going to be faster pretty much always. But if you're riding on really crappy asphalt, chipseal, or on dirt or gravel roads, then a wider more supple tire may be just as fast but a whole lot more comfortable due to the ability to run lower pressures.
The power losses on a perfectly smooth road are aero and rolling resistance. But once you get onto bumpy surfaces, now you also need to consider the power losses of the bumps on the bike AND on the rider because the rider is the one supplying the power, even the power which does not transmit through the cranks.
Although I do agree with you partially, if you're racing, ride what ever makes you fastest. Energy efficiency isn't paramount, getting to the finish first is. But if you're not racing, then really consider if the tradeoff of comfort is worth it.
The BRR website's test protocol uses a fairly smooth metal drum for testing. This is good for testing rolling resistance but not for testing total system losses over rough roads. So although BRR is a great resource, take it with a grain of salt.
The real eye-opener for me were that my kinda knobby MTB tires apparently have nearly the exact rolling resistance as my Schwalbe Marathon Plus on the Gravel Bike. So although they're a lot thinner, nothing is gained here at all. (If you assume enough pressure in the MTB tires on asphalt).
28 mm tires used to be huge tires. Pros didn't ride anything wider than 23 mm in the 90s. 25 mm would be for special occasions. 21 mm on tracks, sometimes even 19 mm.
I think than Valverde used a 28 mm in a Roubaix and at the end of the race said that it was too much and not worth of the extra weight and front section.
Every pro is riding on 30 or 32 mm now. Of course the rims are totally different and wrap those tires in a way that the old metallic rims could not do, hence the aerodynamic gains.
Edit: I've got a gravel bike with 42 mm tires and a 28 mm set. I use the 28 mm when going in the hills on asphalt. I'm with you on that: it's a day/night difference. On mixed mostly flat terrains the 42 mm tires are the best compromise.
Unfortunately you cannot discount the “sponsor effect” here. Wheel manufacturers have been pushing wider rims because it helps them sell another set of wheels to everyone.
In the days of rim brakes a wheel had a finite life (the length of time it took to wear down the braking surface). Then shimano and the frame builders pushed everyone to disc brakes, so the wheels now last for ever. What do you know, 2 years later all the wheel manufacturers are claiming “wide is better” and flogging everyone new wheels.
I’ve not seen any clear evidence that they’re right, and there’s lots of intuitive reasons to think that wider tyres will be slower (aerodynamics!). I remain sceptical, but genuinely hopeful that someone who thinks that wider is faster can provide me with some solid evidence…
I feel that any marketing strategy that relies on the niche of a niche formed of the people that would buy the cutting edge cycling gear just because it's presented as an improvement over the status quo, would hardly bring any benefits to any wheel maker.
I am 100% sure that in this age of "marginal gains", the pro tour teams would not go for anything that doesn't give them it unless severely hamstrung by sponsorship deals. And I doubt that the wheel sponsors don't have multiple sizes available.
And I think you're severely overestimating wheel life span for modern models, at least due to the fact that carbon is more brittle than more pedestrian materials. Just look for Pogacar's fall earlier last week in the Giro to see how a simple flat tire makes the whole wheel a risk.
>And I think you're severely overestimating wheel life span for modern models, at least due to the fact that carbon is more brittle than more pedestrian materials. Just look for Pogacar's fall earlier last week in the Giro to see how a simple flat tire makes the whole wheel a risk.
My experience is personal, but I get 50,000km out of a set of rim brake carbon wheels ridden in all terrains and conditions and through northern european winters. At that point you're also starting to lose spokes/nipples to corrosion, but the rim could be rebuilt with new spokes and a new hub if it didn't need a brake track. That riding includes racing, crashing, potholes, punctures.
Pogacar rides on Enve wheels, which are now hookless and therefore a puncture is much more likely to result in damage. Another innovation that makes life worse for the consumer and better for the manufacturer.
You're kidding yourself if you think Pogacar would run 30mm tires at 55 PSI at the detriment of speed to please his sponsors. Cyclists are notorious for re-badging stuff they don't want to use and being super finicky with their gear. You're talking about guys that hardly celebrate a win with a $250k purse because they want to make sure they stopped their ride right on the finish line on their headunit.
I don't share your optimism about the strength of the scientific method in pro-cycling :) It's not too long ago (admittedly in the pre-disc brake era) that climbers would have their bike built up to sub 6.8kg and then add weight to it to bring it up to the limit rather than use deeper wheels.
If you look at TT equipment all team members use the same helmet regardless of the fact that helmet performance varies massively from rider to rider.
The 2016 S-works Venge is 5w faster than both the SL7 and SL8, so on flat stages all specialized sponsored teams are riding it... aren't they?
Why is nobody wearing a TT Helmet and visor on a normal road stage?
> Why is nobody wearing a TT Helmet and visor on a normal road stage?
(1) weight is not always worth it, notably when there are lots of climbs
(2) riding with others, need to be able to turn your head. Further, you can't get as super low when in a big group. It also doesn't help as much because the group dynamic is more important than crouching extra low and/or helmet drag
To break away requires you to put out 30% more power than the person behind you, and then also means you need to put out 30% more power than the rest of the field. That is a good recipe to go out hard, overcook, and then get passed up by the entire peloton.
The 30% - Drafting is good for a 30% power increase. When in the middle if a peloton, even more. The breakaway plan can make sense, but not by fooling around in a TT helmet in the middle of a peloton for a few hours first.
> Why is nobody wearing a TT Helmet and visor on a normal road stage?
Because it doesn't work as much alone as in combination with specific aero body position. But you can't be in that position in a normal road stage because the aero handlebar extensions are forbidden in mass start stages.
Also there are less aero benefits to be had when you ride in the peloton behind other riders.
You don't need aero bars to have you arms forward and narrow. It's not particularly safe, but doable for a while.
The aero bar question (whether to have them or not) comes down to how long you will spend drafting and climbing. It's a more interesting decisions in Olympics and triathlons than most road bike racing (the latter it makes no sense because people are drafting as much as possible).
The aero drag of wider tire is not a lot. It is more the wider tires are not slower. Wider tires allow: more air volume in tire, lower PSI. In turn those help ride quality.
The aero drag is the elephant in the room here. By this study’s measurements there wasn’t much difference, but what was the width of the rim they used with the narrow tyre?
A narrow tyre on a wide rim is a wide tyre. They don’t explain or address this issue. I suspect they would have used a wide rim with all the tyres, which is notionally a sensible thing to do, but in reality it’s completely flawed.
What are the results if you used a narrower rim with the narrower tyre so that the frontal area was actually reduced as much as it could have been?
Rene herse has been doing those tests since 2006 "back when go-fast tires were 23mm." They covered a lot of variety and their conclusion is the aerial drag is tiny and real world conditions are more important than the idealized condition of tests on a steel drum.
The tests in the reference were done with a 21mm inner rim width. I believe that is neither super wide nor narrow. Arguably a good test bed rim to isolate the difference in tire.
Though, wide rim equates to a wide tire I do not think is true (at least, unsupported). The deep dish rims are only aero if the width is close to that of the tire. Reducing the ratio of tire width to rim width is aero! If anything, a wider deep rim on a skinny tire is increasing are dynamics. The aero dynamics of a wheel is not just a function of the tire alone. A deeper dish of more equal width to the tire helps that teardrop shape you want for aerodynamics.
The reference does go into some more detail why wide rim is desirable to reduce drag. I won't paraphrase further here other than to conclude a wider rim would actually be favorable for the skinny tire.Regardless, a middle of the road rim width was used in that data sample.
> Wheel manufacturers have been pushing wider rims because it helps them sell another set of wheels to everyone.
I think the push to wider tires and lower pressures on road setups is actually because hookless carbon rims are much easier to manufacture than clinchers, and hookless tires can't handle 80+ psi.
Clincher carbon wheels are basically considered a niche product by big manufacturers
I think you might be transposing the cause and effect. Mechanical rim brakes had been limiting the wheel width because of physics of leverage, disc brakes opened demand for wheels of any width and users naturally migrated to the wider wheels.
It can't work like that in the world of mass produced equipment. You can only buy what the manufacturers are making, and as far as I'm aware there haven't been any wheels that are offered in different widths that the consumer can choose from.
It's always: this is the latest model, it has these features, thanks.
I don't think this is a realistic world picture: if this was true then the wheel manufacturers would just keep making rim brake wheels, which a apparently more profitable in your view. In real world a wheel supplier will make wheels for the specs their customers, bike manufacturers and bike shops, order. And those order what their customers, cyclists, demand.
I hear what you're saying and that would normally make sense, but there are reasons why I don't think its true in the bike industry. It comes down to the same arguments that you often see on HN about whether or not a free market works.
Shimano can decide to stop manufacturing rim brake groupsets and spares for existing rim brake groupsets unilaterally. It doesn't matter if the customer wants it or not. The rest of the bike industry supply side won't object to it, because it pushes people towards replacing whole bicycles which benefits all of them.
Other component manufacturers can play the same games in the areas that they can control. Wheel manufacturers can start pushing to wider rims, and then increasing profitability with hookless. Benefits the frame manufacturer (oh no, you need a frame with more clearance!), the tyre manufacturer, doesn't negatively affect any other the other players who aren't directly affected, spin a marketing story about how great this new thing is based on dubious test results and claims, and off it goes.
Repeat that cycle a few times in a few different areas and you have the situation we are now currently in:
The price of a mid/high end bike has doubled in the last 5 years.
The bikes have got heavier and more complicated and harder to maintain.
The consumers are all pissed off with it and start leaving the sport.
Sales suddenly fall off a cliff.
I'm not saying this as a conspiracy theory nut, but rather that there are a set of dynamics at play in this industry that mean that this kind of thing can happen.
If shimano stopped making rim brakes, no tour de France athlete would use shimano groupsets. Rim brakes are lighter, that is why.
Would shimano ever give that up? No. All these companies pride themselves for being what the elites run. Dura ace would become a joke if no elites used it. The dura ace groupo upgrade is thousands of dollars (2k to be exact, it's the most expensive 100g you can pay for), & dura ace is high profi. So mo, too much brand risk. I mean, why haven't they stopped selling rim brakes already? It makes zero sense for shimano to do that.
Further, there are plenty of bike tire manufacturers making a variety of rim sizes. Some bikes can only do 25s max, makes no sense to only have a 28mm rim.
What's more, there's millions, probably hundreds of millions of older bikes that all need new rims every few years. For what you're saying to be accurate, no company would seize that demand and instead some sort of duopoly would instead opt for forced obsolescence. I don't see that as being the case (it is for thing like iPhones/cell phones, but the bike industry is very different)
Your points about the zillions of rim brakes bikes sold at 100-300 Euro price points are definitely on spot. They don't need performance, those brakes are very cheap, they are easy to maintain, they'll last forever in the market IMHO.
However I'm not sure I understood your first point about disc vs rim brakes.
Rim brakes are lighter but disc brakes brake better, in a shorter span and under any circumstance, even in the rain when the rim is wet and a rim brake takes a little to warm up and make friction on the rim. Furthermore wheels and bikes are at 6.8 kg even with disc brakes now. That's why every pro rider started using them when they had a choice. There was a short while when they were kept at hold because of concerns that the disc could hurt riders in group crashes (they don't have that problem in cyclocross or MTB,) then concerns about weight and aero, but given the average speeds they are doing at the Giro in these days I'd say that it is all well in the past.
I'm no tour de France rider but on a steep and long slope I rather use my disc brakes than the rim brakes of my previous bicycle. It was a good bike with much better brakes than the vbrakes of the bike I use for touring with bags but disc brakes are on a different level.
The 28 wheel feels immediately faster. It's lighter, so it accelerates faster than the 42 one and there are a lot of accelerations from low speed in a ride, especially for slow riders like me. On the other side the 42 wheel should be better at keeping the speed because of the higher mass and inertia. Unfortunately that's wasted each time I use the brakes or I slow down.
Are your 28 and 42 tires the same type (e.g., the Rene Herse standard tires are the same construction across the entire size lineup), or is the 28 a road tire and the 42 a gravel tire?
I've got a road bike and a gravel bike. A while ago, I did the same workout, 12 reps of a local hill, 2.5 hours or so, once on each bike, separated by a week.
The road bike is 8kg and 25mm tires, the gravel is 12kg and 650bx42 or 48 tires. (might have been either, as I switched tires around then). The difference in time was 6 seconds.
The gravel bike doesn't feel as fast. It doesn't reward spinning, and the gearing jumps are just a little big for me (1x11). The road bike beats me up with vibrations, but it feels better climbing and standing. It's got closer gear ratios, so it's just a bit better matching. Now, to be fair, the gravel bike is running far better tires, so there's less resistance there. (and, that's basically why I bought it) But overall, they are basically the same speed, even on a hilly climbing workout.
Narrow will feel faster, and lighter accelerates faster - but the perception is often over perceived.
So, the weight difference of 28 vs 42 is going to be 100g maybe. It's not a lot. Weight vs aero experiments have found conclusions like weight over 100 miles is tiny small compared to any aero gains (talking like +3 lbs having a few minute difference over hours). Which is to say, the effects you describe are pretty small when measured.
Moreover, the choice of 28 vs 42 is rare, feels like is more choosing 25, 28 or 32; or choosing something in low 30s compared to 40s. Meaning, the weight delta is even less in real world choices. What's more, you can go to 650b and have the exact same tire weights with much bigger widths.
You cant really pump up 42c tires to 100 psi safely, so no.
Remember that the wider tires are more efficient at lower pressures than narrower tires. However as the pressures go up, the difference becomes smaller. Even without aero gains, the narrower tire will be faster provided its a smooth surface.
On descents you can also pick up a lot of speed by getting a heavier bike and supersizing your meals at McDonalds.
Speed on descents isn't really that relevant - you're descending, so unless you're racing it's practically effort-less. What matters for people biking normally (i.e., not recreational road bike racing) is assistance in the 10-15mph regime, on flat terrain or climbing.
Large changes in rolling resistance matters here, like going from an almost 40W tire to a 20W tire. But aerodynamics have a very minimal effect here, and going below 20W tires won't really make a meaningful difference in biking effort compared to the effect on your butt and wrists.
Going from 20W tire to 10W tires is going to be massive even more so for recreational not so fit riders. Such a rider may output 120-150W on average. Getting 20W free (there are two tires) results in a difference comparable to installing a small motor on your bike.
No: A 20W tire is a 20W tire at 18 mph. At 10 mph, it's roughly a 10W tire (rolling resistance should be mostly linear at these speeds). Going from 20W to 10W tires therefore only saves you 10W total at those speeds.
At 120W, you are idle pedalling. You do not really pedal lighter, so saving a few watts mean an increase in speed, but as both rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag goes up with speed the gain becomes small.
At normal climbs - the time where you'd wish pedalling was easier - you're either 1. spend in the area of 200-300W maintaining the same speed without increasing rolling resistance, making rolling resistance a smaller part of the load, or 2. drop to a granny gear, going very slow to maintain your 120W and thus making the rolling resistance negligible with any tire. In either case, rolling resistance matters much less in climbs.
Yes if you bike slowly, wider tires are better. However I mentioned that in my post. A lot of people who are into biking are in the fitness zone where they are going into speeds where aero starts to matter way more. This is especially true when you consider wind.
> The German magazine TOUR built a sophisticated setup with a motorized dummy rider and found that a 28 mm-wide tire had the same wind resistance as a 25 mm tire when the wind was coming from straight ahead. With a crosswind, the wider tire was very slightly less aerodynamic. Even then, the wider tires required only 5 watt more – on real roads, the reduced suspension losses make up for that.
> To summarize all this research: Narrow tires (<25 mm) are slow. Above 25 mm, the width of your tires are won't change your speed on smooth pavement (at least up to 54 mm wide tires). On rough surfaces, wider tires are faster. That doesn't mean you can just slap any wide tires on your bike and expect it to go fast.
25 and 28 are basically same width. Also wind tunnel testing is not really representative of real world condition given real world turbulence, but I dunno if that would really affect results.
Im just against the general saying that wider tires are faster. This implies that fat bike smooth tires are the fastest, but we know that this is ridiculous. 25 to 35c probably doesn't matter too much aero wise at regular cycling speeds, but going all the way into 40-50c does.
The issue is that narrow tires have a very, very inefficient suspension behavior, and road surface and rider movement causes it to be constantly exercised. That does not mean that you gain anything from going nuts - there are diminishing returns just like there is for slimming the tire for aerodynamics.
What tire is best depends on the surface, the rider and the speed. On a perfectly paved road at high speed and with a light, stable rider, 25 might be right. On regular roads, 35 might be faster. On a bumpy mess, "smooth fat bike" tires would indeed be faster still - assuming you can stay upright without the tread. There's a reason you don't take a road bike with 25mm tires to do downhill mountain racing.
Gravel bikes are going to transform in coming years as now they are neither very comfortable nor fast. It turns out that wider MTB tires are both faster (when it comes to rolling resistance) and way more comfortable and safer than gravel tires even on tarmac, let alone any kind of terrain.
The reason is that soft casing is way more important than knobs when it comes to rolling resistance and MTB tires can be made soft because all the additional rubber coming with width while gravel tires are usually harder and thus slower (and less grippy and less comfotable). Notable exception is Continental Terra Speed but it's still not as good as Race King and way more puncture prone.
The problem with most current gravel frames is that they don't fit wide and fast MTB tires so you are stuck with the worst of both worlds - slow, not comfortable and still not grippy/soft enough to go fast off-road unless it's a very well maintained road.
Gravel bikes are much more comfortable and fast than road bikes on unpaved roads, which is what they are designed for. Wider wheels will add more weight and more angular momentum, making it harder to climb and harder to steer so you might need to replace the drop bar with the MTB flat bar and without the drops you can move the saddle into a more comfortable position as well... ending with a hardtail w/o the suspension fork.
Kenda booster & rush. Continental race king. Maxxis Aspen & Aspen ST. Schwalbe RRs, Vittoria Mezcal, S-works Renegade & fast track, Pirelli Scorpion. Basically every MTB tire manufacturer makes an XC race tire in the 600g range. Some are below 600g, some are above 600g (but below 700g). Just look at the list on the website this thread is under.
But these do not show amazing rolling resistance on that site either. Only Race King approaches top RR numbers of the gravel tires. There are plenty of sub 400g gravel tires with less RR than these. As far as I understood my correspondent, he predicts that riders will add angular momentum (when and MTB riders already complain about steering on gravel bikes) and, apparently, won't win any rolling resistance. What for? Riding at even lower pressure? To do what?
Salsa cut-throat is a gravel bike, fits 2 inch tires. Personally, I find having drops to be more comfortable because you can change hand position. Look to tour divide bikes for gravel bikes optimized for comfort and fatter tires. I don't understand your prediction for an imminent transformation.
My prediction is that gravel bikes will have wider forks and people will put MTB tires in them instead of 40mm "gravel" tires they do today. It will be faster, more comfortable and safer. Drop bars are great, they will stay. You don't need an MTB bar for your typical light off-road terrain.
Gravel bikes with wide forks and MTB tires already exist. That was my point with the salsa cutty example.
Classic gravel tires do not have very aggressive knobs, but there are some that do.
Gravel is odd as that can be hard packed dirt, small rocks, larger, up to mountain road (babyheads). For some of those conditions, the sidewall of a MTB is overkill and there is a stronger desire for a supplier, faster tire. Basically a cross country MTB tread.
So, there are already wide forked gravel bikes, and there are conditions where a 38 tire is plenty. To fit a 2 inch or 3 inch tire also requires trade offs for the down tube. Which is to say, it's arguably different bikes you want fir some Kansas gravel compared to northwest mountain passes.
As well, the upper limit will probably be at 2.5 inches.
Last, a lot of MTB tires are designed for folks that drive up to a trailhead and then ride down a trail. Those tires need to be solid, and just solid. So, I think it will be the variety of tires that change. More tires suitable for "light" cross-country MTB and ranging in between the spectrums.
I absolutely love my Lauf with their weird suspension front fork. Bike is super comfortable to ride. Also has plenty of width room for wider tires. I run WTB Nano 40c, which are a great mix for road/gravel.
>It turns out that wider MTB tires are both faster (when it comes to rolling resistance) and way more comfortable and safer than gravel tires even on tarmac, let alone any kind of terrain.
...except when you are going fast. But I do agree that honestly, full on XC MTB are better than any gravel bike for mixed terrain. Modern race XC bikes are not only lightweight, but have enough suspension travel front and rear to tackle super rough trails, which means you don't have to rely on tire pressure for compliance (although QC on the carbon frames is questionable even from the bigger brands).
That being said, when it comes to road, ultimately, aero bikes are still king for efficiency if you are least moderately fit.
it's always wild to me hearing what pressure people use.
on my road bike with 28c and inner tubes, 60 psi is what i use on _good_ road surface. maybe the roads are just shit here, but even 55 psi feel rough. i usually run on around 50 psi, 40 in winter.
there was a time i lost my track pump and i just pump the tyres using a mini pump without a guage. later i discovered i was running on something as low as 30 psi.
i have never had a pinch flat. i don't think i'm particularly light. full load when doing groceries is probably 85 kg. is it just that my pressure juage is woefully inaccurate?
28 to 32 is negligible aero wise for most people, I don't disagree. 30 mph (or slower into the headwind for an air speed of 30 mph) will start to matter a little bit though, math doesn't lie.
But saying wider tires are better as a blanket statement implies that you can run like 45c gravel tires and still have the same aero drag, which is by far not the case.
All that aero is probably not working so well for you. Even on my mountain bike with grippy and wide tires I get over 40 mph. On my gravel I can hit over 50 mph, and thats with 45mm tires.
I can get close to 50 mph (safely) downhill on my 30 year old steel framed 8 speed bike with 20mm tubular tires pumped to 120 psi. No problem with riding at 20 mph on the flats and I'm close to 60 years of age. My "aero" CF bikes with deep carbon rims are minimally faster. Speed is irrelevant unless you are racing. Enjoy the ride and stop relying on equipment for minimal performance gains.
Its totally possible to hit over 40 mph on steep hills on an MTB, especially if you weigh more. I was more referring to slight grades with just pure rolling without pedaling.
Im in Austin so I frequent COTA Bike nights on Tuesdays on the track. Coming down the hill from turn 1 with other riders is a very good test of aero efficiency, because there is a slight uphill after the bend. Couple of my friends ride gravel bikes, one of them is heavier than me, and its pretty clear that that my bike is more efficient.
Shout-out to Violet Crown, PHENOM, Breakfast Club, UNITED, Night Owls, and all the other great cycling clubs in Austin! Wonderful community that I still miss.
Have you tried swapping bikes with your buddy? Are you two the same height/weight? Who has the more flexible spine? It would be fascinating to measure aerodynamic efficiency for two riders on the same bike. Is the more variation within populations, or between populations?
While it's certainly possible to have a throttle most electric bikes require pedaling and therefore some degree of exercise. In many cases it gets people riding that would not be riding otherwise. For people that are actually interested in fitness it's a lot easier to maintain zone 2 on real roads with electric assist without the impulse to push it a bit up the hills. I did far more aggressive rides when I had access to my electric road bike than I do on other bikes because I knew I had a bail out if I pushed too far. Nobody's going to congratulate an e-bike rider on their feats of endurance or power but there are lots of points between a normal cycling effort and no effort at all.
Sometimes people riding bikes are in a rush (eg: morning meetings and commuting. [And no, drinking is not always a solution, in my situation it's a 30 minute drive or bike ride either way, and driving then costs $30/day and the time to find parking makes it slower. The drive Honda will be usually faster but has to be after 6pm, otherwise it is an hour to get home. This is a 10 mile commute I'm describing, and fir about 6 hours out if the day it's a traffic jam half of the way)
Lots of factors. For example, i get way less tired riding a road bike in the heat than a mountain bike, because the airflow at speed helps me keep cool.
I choose flat resistance over either. Schwalbe Marathons or equivalent on all my bikes, but I use my bikes as my primary mode of transportation in the city. I really don’t want to deal with flats when I have to be on time.
Edit: after browsing the site, the Marathons are the lowest rolling resistance touring tires too! Double bonus for an excellent tire, which I can now recommend without reservations.
Marathons have been my tire for about 15 years of city and road riding, and I have only flatted once -- direct hit on a nail IIRC. I am always amazed at their longevity and reliability.
I like the Marathons for the same reasons. Only in cold weather it‘s like the rubber of the tyres gets quite a bit stiffer (more so than other tyres), and provides less grip, just when you need it.
Riding is more fun with less resistance, it just "feels better". That alone is an argument to choose the correct tire (there are trade offs obviously). From my own experience (MTB) I can say that the difference in rolling resistance are very noticeable.
If you look at the tires (let's ignore road bikes for now) the vast majority is between 15ish and 28ish Watts (I usually look at Gravel and MTB tires).
Then look at the methodology:
> The total rolling resistance of an average rider with a total bike + rider weight of 85 kg / 188 lbs that averages 28.8 km/h / 18 mph will be double the rolling resistance you can find on our website. If you're heavier than that or average higher speeds, the total rolling resistance will increase roughly linearly with the increase in weight or speed.
All I can say is that I am a lot heavier than 85kg with my bike and that I am usually riding at 20-25 km/h.
So let's say the lower bound they mention would 2x15 and the upper bound 2x25. Let's assume 127kg with luggage, that scales linearly to 3x15 - 3x25, but the speed is only 2/3, so we can dial it back. My napkin math now says the difference between a good pair of tires and a bad one is 30 vs 50.
And I'm still not sure if that translates 1:1 to the assumed typical 100 Watts of an average rider..
I let both of my kids try things and choose, both choose tires with fairly low resistance. One more so than the other, but both clearly regarded high pressure as somehow comfortable: Apply pressure to pedal, feel bike move. Responsiveness.
You can have both. Wider tires are faster and more comfortable. It’s only at the point aero becomes a limiting factor that things change. In the real world most of what we “know” about tires is a myth (and the linked site isn’t doing real world testing)
BRR is not promoting harder tyres to lower CRR. What it lets you do is compare CRR across different tyres at similar pressures. Generally, wider tyres with lower pressure gives better CRR than narrower tyres at high pressure.
I think it's interesting to have observed the changes over the years. Before it was about having as thin tires as possible, pumped as hard as possible. Then one realized that only gives a low rolling resistance on perfectly even surface, something softer can absorb more of the little bumps (and also perhaps not fatigue the rider as much from a bumpy ride). Then bytul vs latex vs tpu tubes. Or go entirely tubeless is in vogue lately, often with wider tires and less air in them.
There are other trade offs than rolling resistance. Like puncture resistance, grip/cornering ability, aerodynamics, weight etc. that also comes into account when choosing a tire setup.
> something softer can absorb more of the little bumps (and also perhaps not fatigue the rider as much from a bumpy ride).
Not quite. You can air down narrower road tires for this. The difference is that a wider tire (i.e a tire with more volume) is going to be more efficient at lower psi, because of a wider contact patch that ends up spreading the load out more and deflecting the tread less.
This effect definitely is pronounced for gravel riding when you have to run pressures lower than 60 psi, and a wider tire is better. However for on road riding, even on rough roads, a narrower tire is going to usually be better, because you gain the aerodynamic advantage, even if you run at lower psi. If you can sustain above 20 mph, running a 28c tire vs a 38c will save you 20 watts, which is noticeable.
>Then bytul vs latex vs tpu tubes.
This matters extremely little for most people. Maybe like 4 watts at most. For racing, when you are optimizing everything, its worth it, but generally tubes matter way less then tire selection. That being said, there really isn't any reason not to run TPU tubes because they are a lot more pliable and puncture resistant.
Generally asking bike industry to do actual engineering is an impossible task, but for optimal design there is no reason why even road bikes should not have suspension that doesn't rely on tire compliance. You can do carbon leaf springs with very small dampers. The best we get is suspension stems and seatposts, which suck because you still have all that unsprung mass of the entire bike bouncing around.
Then everyone in the peloton for races like Paris Roubaix would be on 38c gravel tires. The reason they run 28c is because while it sucks for cobblestone, there sre flatter sections where the aero advantage is worth it.
Per 10mm tire width increase, you are getting 10 watts more aero drag at 25 mph.
Elite riders and teams are very conservative. They shift to new tech after it has been proven over decades.
Consider that from a programming perspective, imagine using no tech newer than 2004.
The transition to 28s took a long time itself
> Per 10mm tire width increase, you are getting 10 watts more aero drag at 25 mph.
Interseting, where can I read more about this? I don't think this conclusion lines up with either the article, or the research from rene herse. Travel surfaced also matters quite a it, I could see that maybe being true in an idealized setting.
There is more to it. Tire needs to be in contact with ground to transfer power. A skinny high PSI tire will spend a lot of time bouncing. Just one example of how other real world factors can be more significant.
Gravel tyres have higher rolling resistance. Also, beyond 32mm, you start risking cornering ability on the road as there’s more tyre to roll over to change direction.
Aero drag is just not that simple. You can’t, without testing, make the claim you’re making. Also, you can’t make the claim outside of the exact setup you tested. A different rider, wheels or bike could test faster on 40mm because aerodynamic drag is that difficult to predict.
You are right, this year 32c seems to be the most common. I remember 2023 was still 28c, and there were tests done that I remember seeing where 28c was slightly more efficient than 30c, but at a higher pressure.
I feel the same about suspension but maybe it's just very hard to design. It would need to be very light and aero to make it worth it for road bikes which are pretty great on roads as they are. For gravel there is the Lauf suspension thing and the new light/short suspension forks but I am not surprised they are not very popular as a suspension fork means regular expensive maintenance. Why not just slap 2+ inch MTB tires on the bike instead?
You may want to look into dropper seat posts. They have road versions that are relatively stiff.
Suspension weighs like 2 lbs (_very_ heavy) and can fail/needs maintenance, and for small bumps the shock absorber moving around loses a lot of power transfer. Nicer suspensions have lock outs so you can disable the suspension on roads and flip it back on when you're back in the mountains.
Fir road only, I don't think suspension ever would make sense. Fatter tires and a (for road) dropper seat post will likely give you all the suspension you need with little penalty
The rolling resistance data is interesting, but it would be nice to see some more realistic testing. For example ramping the pressure up on a smooth surface gives lower rolling resistance on a rolling road. But in the real world super high pressures cause the whole bike and your body to shudder and vibrate, which also consumes energy. So there is a sweet spot, between heating the tyre up too much, and passing too much vibration through.
The question is whether more realistic testing is really needed. At some speed below 30km/h aero drag takes over and at higher speeds that's basically the only thing that matters. Unless you are riding steep hills in which case total weight is the thing that matters.
No, you can't, because the elasticity of the spoke doesn't depend on the tension, only the cross section of the spoke. (and count of spokes, and to a lesser extent the lacing pattern).
Wheels are a prestressed linear superposition of overall tension and a compressive load at the bottom. Generally, you'll see ~4 spokes at the bottom of the wheel relaxing to take the vertical load. (in a properly built wheel)
This is due to rims not being completely rigid, but being a somewhat flexible beam. Rims are nowhere near rigid enough to do the "hang from the top" thing.
Spokes will break at the elbow, but generally due to fatigue, which is made much worse when there are stress reversals. Fatigue is when cyclic loads cause small imperfections to grow into cracks, and eventually failure. If you have stress reversals under rolling loads (where the stress goes from tension to compression, anywhere in the spoke elbow) you should expect to see spike failures in ~1000 miles. A stress reversal doesn't necessarily mean that a spoke is slack, because there are some interesting stress patterns in the elbow in poorly built wheels.
The compressive load is negligible, that's why you can build a wheel entirely out of non-rigid spokes such as liteweight wheels or https://berdspokes.com/
There should never be a _net_ compressive load on a spoke, but a spoke can carry a compressive varying/live load if there's sufficient pre-tension from the building process.
You wouldn't want berd spokes to go slack any more than you'd want steel spokes to go slack.
I wish there was a site that ranks tire grip. Only way to know right now is to see who is rolling faster through the corners than you and word of mouth.
Even that is not realistic as in contradiction with 4 wheels setup most people on pavement don't nearly reach the limit of grip on 2 wheels. The reward/risk ratio is not high enough. You'd need a bot for that on a skidpad test.
Also on 2 wheels going fast around corners doesn't only involve grip but confidence. This is partly personal/psychological and partly based on feedback from the tire that comes on how the carcass of the tire deform while you are leaning the bike. It could be that a tire with more grip doesn't give you as much confidence as a tire with less grip on which you are closing in much closer to the limit.
Off the road the grip is so dependent on surface that it is even more difficult. There are tire for dry, mud or mixed surfaces and what you will encounter on the trail might be somewhere in between all of these.
I race criteriums (and end up on the podium every once in a while) so I know relatively well how to corner. Fact is that there is no way to compare grip of tires except to trust a reputable manufacturer.
Not sure how valid this really is for mountain bike tyres as the terrain is so varied.
For example if you run an MTB tyre hard it will bounce around on a rocky surface and roll less efficiently than if you run it at lower pressure that allows the tyre to deform and bounce around less.
Interesting site nonetheless and a useful data point to compare tyres in a systematic way.
It turns out the test is remarkably useful: fast tires on BRR are fast tires on various terrains. It turns out that fast tires are fast on everything and slow tires are slow on everything. It's true you can't say that about pressure (high pressure is slightly faster on perfect road but much slower on not so perfect one) but when it comes to tire choice it's a very good resource.
It isn't valid for mountain bike tires, except for when you're riding your mountain bike on a smooth road.
The only tests which BRR does which are likely applicable to mountain bike tires mounted to mountain bikes ridden on trails are the puncture tests, as you're likely to find sharp objects even on trails. Maybe the wet grip tests matter, if you often encounter wet large rock that you ride on.
What a coincidence, earlier this week I thought about changing the tires on my MTB to better suit my riding style, and I wondered if there are sites with extensive tire reviews.
Niche website with extremely thorough and exacting analysis, that provides most of its data completely for free has a modest payment model. I'm shocked, but because of how strikingly reasonable it is.
In a market where the two dominant modes are a) a subscription fee that you have to keep paying and b) indefinite membership after one payment, many people reading "one-time payment" will immediately assume that means (b) and bristle when they realise it's actually (a).
They're not lying as such but it's at least accidentally misleading. "It's a subscription" should be up front, then go into how it's prepay and well behaved.
No, they say "one-time payment" that gives you access for a year. If you want a second year, you make another one-time payment. There's no recurring payment, it's totally under your control.
ah i love this...i have to say i havent checked that page...one-time payment, to me, means forever...if you have one-time payment per year, you must say so
Or maybe that's you who must adjust your understanding of reality. One time payment for forever access to something that is constantly updated/cost money to run is not a reasonable expectations and no one "must" tell you this. You must learn it yourself instead.
How do you pay a single one-time payment at a per month rate? How many months do they charge for the one-time payment?
Usually a 'single one-time payment' would be a payment for life. Typically for apps they're <$10 for the lifetime of the buyer (or app if that dies first; there are issues around this sort of pricing, but people are expecting a minimum of several years).
What you appear to be describing would be a pre- payment plan at 80¢/mo.
The registration page (https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/register) should answer your questions: basically you can pay for 30 days, one year or two years in advance, and the two year membership translates to 79 cents per month. But I still think they could have phrased it better in the "Become a Pro Member" box...
Literally 5 seconds of investigation revealed that they offer three durations of membership, each a one off payment (the per month pricing is just a representative amortisation). This is actually so easy to discover, and so easy to understand, that I'm guessing you're just reflexively enraged.
It’s not a recurring payment. A recurring payment is automatically taken from you, this is a one off payment that gives you access for a set time. It’s very clear on the purchasing page.
I just explained it in my message: you pay once for a year and that's it. This is not a lifetime access, it's a one-off payment that gives you access for 12 months. If you like it, you purchase again.
I really don't understand how this is confusing for you.
This is not what I would call a one-time payment. If you wish to continue to use the website you pay again. That's just not what "one-time" means to me.
It's not confusing, it's just annoying marketing-speak in the sense that (paraphrasing) 'a simple one-time payment' is what customers like when purchasing something. Whereas the offer is not that, the term has been used in any case.
What is offered is 'a subscription without auto-renewal'.
If you really wish to understand my thinking I can elucidate you at length, but it seems we've spent way too long already discussing understanding of a particular piece of marketese.
No idea why you get downvoted... on one hand, a site like this one needs some revenue in order to keep up their work, I think we can all agree on that one. But unclear messaging about how much exactly you will be paying is not going to encourage anyone to sign up...
A super easy way to tell how efficient a tire is going to roll is weight. If you are comparing tires for the same diameter/width/tread pattern, in most cases, the lighter tire is going to roll better.
Tire rolling resistance comes from effectively the rebound damping on the tread. As the tire rolls, the tread on the backside of the contact patch takes some time to rebound, so the tire is effectively always rolling over a bump that is the uncompressed tread the front of the contact patch
The lighter the tire, the less sidewall and puncture material there is, which means that the rebound damping on the tire is going to be less.
There can be some merit to the fact that the weight in a tire is rotating mass, though. But then you get into thoughts about that the bottom of the tire is technically standing still, and the top of the tire is double the speed of your travel. And does it then matter?
Its a very rough rule, and has exceptions, but its generally works out.
Compare continental gatorskins in 28c vs continental gp5000 in 28c. Gatorskins have more casing to prevent puncture, so they are heavier, but that casing also takes away from the rolling efficiency.
They are also a testament to the dazzling amount of options that mature industries seem to produce.
> The Schwalbe Racing Ray is optimized for front tire use and is a bit less aggressive than the Schwalbe Rocket Ron, […] Schwalbe suggests pairing the Racing Ray with the Racing Ralph (read review), which is optimized for use on the rear wheel.
> The Racing Ray used to be only available with the Addix SpeedGrip compound, which [is] grippier than their Addix Speed compound. We just noticed Schwalbe also released a Super Race version with the Addix Speed compound somewhere in the last few years, and we're not sure about the front wheel claims for that version.