How much do tires affect speed?



Back in the 1970's Hutch tubulars were teh suck. Only Wolber's were worse for longevity.

I use Michelin Pro 4 Service Course and Pro 4 Competition clinchers for training. They are NOT good in the CRR category. The newer Power series has a better CRR profile in all categories of testing.

Results of the various CRR tests are all over the web. Ride what works for you.

https://www.bikeradar.com/us/road/gear/article/best-performance-road-tires-lab-tested-49101/

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/
 
Back in the 1970's Hutch tubulars were teh suck. Only Wolber's were worse for longevity.

I use Michelin Pro 4 Service Course and Pro 4 Competition clinchers for training. They are NOT good in the CRR category. The newer Power series has a better CRR profile in all categories of testing.

Results of the various CRR tests are all over the web. Ride what works for you.

https://www.bikeradar.com/us/road/gear/article/best-performance-road-tires-lab-tested-49101/

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

They haven't tested the Specialized Roubaix tire yet, they haven't tested a lot of tires yet, but it is good information about the ones they did test. They did test my touring tire, the Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard that rolled very well for a heavy tire, and I can vouch for that as well; but the ones that rolled better don't come in a 27" size so I guess one could say that the Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard is the best rolling 27" touring tire on the market. I wonder how the Panaracer Pasela TG would have done, but it's a light touring tire not really good for heavy loads like the Schwalbe, plus the Pasela has thinner sidewalls which may not hold up as well when the going gets rougher, but it is a good tire nevertheless.
 
I saw that one but I dismissed it because it was done in 2014 which means they used either 2013 or maybe 2014 tires, the new tires were improved in 2017 to be even better (supposedly) than those tires they tested.

I forgot one thing, keep in mind too that these tires are about 70 grams heavier than the Conti GP4000s, for a tire that weighs as much as the Specialized does that is a very fast tire, and makes it much faster than other flat resistant tough built tires on the market. Having owned GP4000s tires I do NOT put them in the same category as the Roubaix tire. The Conti is to fragile, the sidewalls are paper thin and get damaged to quickly, they flat more often as well, while they do wear well I've never worn out a set because because the sidewalls got damaged before that happened! I could never trust a Conti tire on a gravel road, but it's not made for that purpose either, but even on surface streets it just doesn't last long due to the fragile sidewalls.

I'm not the only person who has experienced issues with Conti sidewalls. I've never had any sidewall issues with any tires I've owned in over 40 years of riding, but when ever I've tried a Conti tire it's the sidewall that destroys the tire before it's worn out. I'm not going to pay a premium for a tire that won't hold up.
 
Conti sidewall issues are well known. I have 28 MM Gatorskin's on the Santana tandem. They remind me of 1970's 'gumwalls'. The Ribble R872 wears 25 MM Conti Ultra Sport's.

Other than that, I'm kind of a Vredestein and Michelin fan at this point when it coms to clinchers. I like Vittoria tires, but everyone says their open clinchers are destroyed by looking at them wrong.

I bought one Spesh 23 MM tire in 2007. That's the only one I've owned and I do not recall the model. It was a racing level tire. It was an emergency rear replacement I needed fast and that's what my local dealer stocked. IIRC it had good characteristics and just like every good tire made for speed it was shot at the 1000-mile mark.
 
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I like Vittoria tires too, but after wearing out a set of them and going straight to the Specialized Roubaix Pro I like the Spesh better. I haven't tried Vredestein in a very long time, and I can't recall if I've ever used Michelin on anything but cars. I may try the Michs someday just to see what they're all about but they would have to go on a deep sale since I never pay more than $30 for a tire, it's my philosophy of buying tires because like bikes, tires are way over priced.

The worst tire that I've bought, probably tying with Conti for longevity, was the Hutchinson tires, the center smooth cap peeled off like a recapped tire, I sent Hutchinson several Emails about that happening and not one response, that's fine I simply will never buy another tire from them and will bash them on forums and on review sites.
 
Pro4 Service Course is about $32 on any of the English/Euro websites. Buy a 2-pack with free Michelin tubes. I add on bar tape, a tool, cable frame protectors or what not and get free shipping.

I like the way a Pro4 Service Course or Competition rides. It just 'feels' good. They stick in the corners well. But, as far as CRR goes you can do better. I haven't tried the newer Power series, but I will when the price drops.
 
Right now I'm all tired up, I have another set of Specialized Roubaix Pro tires I bought and put them in storage for when another bike might need them. But I would like the try the Power series myself but it might take till end of next year when I may need them and have to find them on sale.
 
Power Competitions are about $37 right now. I found Power All Seasons for $34. When they drop another $5 or so I'll pull the trigger.

After being forced into that emergency Spesh tire buy back when I first got into clinchers I learned my lesson. Never have less than a half-dozen tires aging in the closet.
 
I don't ride like you do CampyBob so I only carry one extra pair of tires in reserve, and I only order another pair if I find a really low price and it's too good to pass up or wait till I use that spare reserve pair then start looking for deals, it's not uncommon for me not to have any tires in reserve before I start looking for tires. I have other bikes with tires so if I really needed to I could take a tire off one of the bikes I don't use much and put them on the bike I need a tire for, if that happens I usually simply ride another bike with good tires till I get a tire(s) for my main bike.

Right now I have a set of Roubaix Pro tires in storage I got when they had the sale so I'll probably be good for at least another year and probably two.

I don't know if I buy into the aging tire thing you do CampyBob, because tires are not wine, as they age they are actually deteriorating. Plus any tire you buy didn't come straight from the factory directly to you, they were first stored in a factory warehouse in say Taiwan for who knows how long before a warehouse in the US asks for restocking, then sent by truck to a dock area where they are put into a shipping container and could set on that dock for a week to a month all the while baking in a hot container, then loaded on a ship that could take between 15 to 40 days to get to say California again baking in the sun, it then sets on the dock for a while till it's loaded on a truck or train and taken to an area where it will be transferred again to a truck and taken to a warehouse will it will set till an order calls for it to be picked. So really when you order a set of tires they could be already a year old before you get them! In fact I think closeout sales on tires are tires that are right around 1 1/2 to 2 years old.

Automotive tires the federal government is VERY concerned about tires that have sat around too long before being sold so they now put date codes on tires and if a tire is not sold by a certain date that tire is sent back.

You can read this about car tires: https://www.utires.com/articles/after-how-many-years-should-i-change-my-tires/

I once followed a friend home from Illinois to NE Indiana who was driving a 1962 Ford T-Bird that had the original tires from the factory! the tires were cracked but he decided to drive the car home anyways, we made it home without a tire failure.

You can read about this even with motorcycle tires, see: https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/do-motorcycle-tires-have-shelf-life#page-3

Of course car/MC tires are designed to go a lot faster than a bike tire will and thus the heat from going faster can be an accident waiting to happen if the tires are too old, but the point of those articles is that tires do age.

Here is something about bike tires: https://www.velonews.com/2014/04/bi...hnical-faq-taking-care-of-unused-tires_325651

Keep in mind that car tires and motorcycle tires are constructed far better than bicycle tires thus I seriously doubt that a bike tire should be aged. However if you're using ultra expensive silk cased tubular tires there was something I heard many years ago that the silk did need to be aged but it was a balancing act because the rubber was also aging which wasn't good for the rubber. There was also something I read some years back that some pro cycling team coach guy would store only tubulars (I can't recall if those were silk or not, I think so) for 5 to 7 years before using them BUT he stored them in a wine cellar with 40 psi in them which meant he had to constantly go down into the cellar every day and keep those tires at 40 psi, but he said that was only necessary with those type of tubulars and not necessary and unadvisable for clinchers. But keep in mind that this guy had no science behind what he was doing, it was something he thought should be done but I think he was wrong! Because as tires age the rubber becomes harder not more supple, even natural rubber used in high end tubulars will become hard after a long period of time, maybe the silk became more supple? which I can't see silk going through any changes encase in natural rubber or not encased and just setting out in the open but we were told that, but the rubber getting harder ruined whatever improvement the silk had to offer by aging. The common thing now is to age tubulars inflated in a dry cool place for 6 months but that's due to the natural rubber used in a lot of tubulars, synthetic rubber used in all clinchers and some tubulars do not require any aging and in fact will only harden with age. Natural rubber when fresh is sticky so it picks up more road debris which can cause more flats, but after aging roughly 6 months the rubber hardens (and continues to do so but that becomes a disadvantage the more time goes by), however I believe that with shipping and storage times those 6 months are already used by the time you get the tire so aging them any further is actually going backwards in helping the tire.

By the way, cheaper tubulars that use cotton I never heard of any advantage aging those.

Now having said all of that, I did mention I have a pair of tires that may not be used for a year, it's not that I'm aging them, it's just that I don't believe that storing tires makes such a dramatic change to the tire that I'm endangering myself by doing so. I have a pair of tires that came off of a 1984 Fuji Club that came with the bike when it was new (the bike and tires only saw 5 miles since it was new till I bought it about 6 or 7 years ago) and I have full confidence in those tires that I could ride them anywhere I wanted to, the only reason I took them off is because the flat resistance in those older tires were non existent unlike those made today, but I did ride on those tires for about 25 miles before I got a set of tires to replace them with. Even after all those years in storage those tires do not have one crack on them anywhere, and they didn't act "slick" from having hardened aged rubber, nor do they even feel hard or brittle. I have another tire that I got around the late 90's that for years just sat in my seat bag as a spare and now sits in my tool box with my Spesh tires, I took it out just today because of this conversation and looked at it closely and found no cracks in it either and those saw about 500 miles of use before becoming my spare, they also don't feel hard or brittle. So really, maybe the rubber on those older tires got a bit harder then they were when new but that didn't make them unrideable, and unless I was racing or descending fast winding mountain roads the harder rubber won't mean anything.

So at the end of the day, if you want to age them because that's what you've been doing for 40 years go ahead you're not riding on dangerous tires, if you decide to use them immediately after purchase go ahead you won't notice any difference anyways. Synthetic rubber just doesn't go through a lot of changes even after a few years.
 
The tires on the track bike are over ten years old. The front has been on it for ???. The rear I generally go through one per season. Heat and tread distortion on a wheel-on trainer is abusive.
 
I rotate my tires in a weird way, when I wear out the rear I move the front to the rear and put a new tire on the front; but if I put a 28 on the rear and a 25 on the front they both wear out close to the same so usually there's no need to rotate.
 
Supposedly 20 grams is rotational weight and not static weight, and the loss of rotational weight is what really improves performance...BUT...10 per wheel is like you said, nothing, maybe if you were doing a 24 hour race it might matter by about 10 seconds which could mean the difference between winning and losing, but for us mere mortals it means nothing.
Take a wheel without a tire mounted and watch it rotate down to the part of the wheel opposite the filler valve - this isn't from the missing metal from the hole left where it was drilled for the filler valve - rims are actually weighted opposite the filler to offset the weight of the filler - the deeper the section the longer the filler and the more counterweight.

20 grams is about 0.7 ounces and would be a little over 2 thousandths of one part of bike and rider. And the rotating weight means very little unless it is unbalancing the wheel. The slime you add to a tubeless ends up coating the inside of the tire at speed and therefore having no effect on the tire's balance. At slow speeds it all falls to the bottom of the tire and again has no effect - and the only effect on acceleration It has is the surface tension of the sealant being broken to accelerate the tire. This is so slight that it probably would require lab instrumentation to even detect.

Bicycles are phenomenally efficient and any changes are so tiny as to cause no detectable changes. There is more detectable difference going from the 23 mm high pressure Gatorskin that were on my Time to the 28 mm Michelin Krylon Endurance than almost any other change.

If you have a front derailleur dragging on the chain that is more power loss than anything short of a flat tire. It can be barely clicking and adjusting it on a hard climb will be almost instantly detectable.

Question: do fatter tires always give you lower friction. Answer: No, there is the law of diminishing returns. It has to do with the weight of the bike/rider.

The reason you hear people talking about rotating weight is that IF the wheel is accelerated more rapidly than the bike it has a more defined effect. But that isn't the case with a bicycle since the wheel cannot go faster than the bike. The tire surface goes at the same speed as the rest of the bike.
 
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At what point did you turn into a mindless moron? Tests on the rolling resistance of tires shows: 3. High pressure tubulars, 2. tube clinchers and 1. tubeless. At what point did this become a secret unknown by you? It isn't as if any engineer couldn't theorize this order off of the top of his head - the less rolling mass the less rolling resistance. It isn't as if the teams are not using wider and lower pressure tires which you seem to think another hidden secret that you must deny from ignorance of this tidbit.

I realize that you love to believe media reports which are both inaccurate and incomplete. Of course a latex covered cotton casing would be faster. And using a latex tube inside STILL makes the total mass less than a normal casing. And it also makes these tires good for one F-ing ride.

I have yet to see you make any comments on my postings in which you took one second to think about. Are you afraid someone is stealing your thunder or something?
 
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****ing moron. You're so full of ******** your eyes are brown.

Fastest tire on the planet as of 2017 and this test. Yeah, not a tub.

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews/vittoria-corsa-speed-2016

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews/vittoria-corsa-speed-tubular-2017

The tub version tested slower.

https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews/vittoria-corsa-speed-2016

And big ****ing whoop. I can find a test or two to back up any preconceived ******** I wanted to spew too, but the fact of the matter is that Tony Martin is a World Champion on a pair of clinchers and you're just another jackass on the internet that thinks he knows more than he really does. Better run and tell Tony he was on the slowest of three tire types according to some old blowhard on the web.
 

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