Tires, wire or folding?

Hi!

There are some rumours going on that wire bead tires have stronger sidewalls then their folding equivalents, with a weight penalty.

I don't really care if the tire is folding or not...

For example the Folding Gatorskins are about 5 euro more expensive then the Wire bead ones and they are just 40grams heavier...

If they indeed have stronger sidewalls, I would prefer them over the folding ones.


Is there any truth behind that claim or the folding ones are just exactly the same but with Kevlar instead of Wire?

 

You'll never impress those hippie chicks with hairy arm pits with wire bead tires. Not even the half trashed one-night stands that ride over to your place are going to believe your Tour De France stories if they spot the cheap shoes on your racing bike propped up ever so cleverly by the bedroom door.

Go for the Kevlar and Carbon Fiber bragging rights and make that 40 grams get you some booty!

 

Interesting you said that... I was out getting dumb-drunk and dancing socializing yesterday and things I learned:


1. Most girls that are on a night club are lesbians on a date with their girlfriend. The intimacy between them will start exactly at the moment when somebody goes to talk to them. (That's the 70% of my test sampling).

2. Girls do not have facebook, or if they do they never log in. They also don't own mobile phones, but borrow them from others. They are very respectful of the mobile phone owners privacy.

3. Girls will be more talkative, the more agitated and angry you become.

4. Fat girls accompanied by pretty girls soon discover they have an obligation if a guy starts talking to their friends, which results in them leaving all together.

5. The only way to feel rich is to go to a night club and have a couple of drinks. You will soon discover that you have an expendable amount of wealth.


So... Just fashion and 60 grams of weight saving huh?

There is the argument that folding tires are better to carry with you as back-ups, just like tubes and tire boots. But that's probably for tours longer then 200km or so into nowhere.


Is there anything else that makes kevlar tires more "upscale" then wire except the weight saving?

Would they actually require a different build on the sidewalls which would result in an "accidental" (or not) stronger sidewall construction?

 

Look it's about the money, the only three advantages to folding tire is weight which you already know about, you can easily carry a spare but few people do, and it's easier to fix a flat. However there are advantages to wire beaded, it's less expensive as you already know and less prone to blow off the rim. A wire beaded tire can be sort of be folded by watching this video which is quicker for me instead of typing it all out! see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndMfLHG0T3U

Wire vs kevlar beaded tires do not have anything to do with making the sidewall stronger, and in that vein the Gatorskins sidewalls are fragile, but Continental makes the most fragile road sidewalls in the industry. The only road tire they have that has a little more stout to it is the Gator Hardshell.

A tire that uses the same tread casing like the folding and non folding Gatorskin is exactly the same tire except for the bead.

I have no problems using a beaded tire except in fixing flats. With a folding tire I can in a lot of cases if I can find the puncture/leak to simply remove half of the bead with the puncture in the middle, then reach in where the puncture is at and pull about a 1/4th of the tube out, repair the hole, check the tire for anything stuck in it, reinstall the tube and put the half of the tire back on...fast and simple. However I do use a beaded tire on my touring bike because I wouldn't want to be heavily loaded have a blow out and experience the bead coming off the rim. But because fixing a flat in the rear tire of a touring bike is a sort of a huge hassle with the usual mechanics plus the fender, panniers and rack, so I put a Panasonic FlatAway liner in the rear tire to eliminate most anything that might penetrate my already good flat resistant rear tire...a Panasonic Pasela TG. (Schwalbe makes a much more stout touring tire but I don't tour for more than a weekend at a time currently so the load I carry is light for touring). All my regular road bikes use folding tires, but both of my touring bikes use beaded tires.

 

I've found wire bead allows for easier fitting and removal.

 

In 40 years of riding that hasn't been remotely the case with me. I've found folding tires to be 10 times easier, plus don't forget I mentioned it's way faster to fix a flat with a folding tire if you simply remove just half of the tire then pull about fourth of the tube out, you can't do that with a wire beaded tire. Wire beaded tires don't have the flexibility to mount or dismount quickly either. HOWEVER; when first installing a brand new folding tire it is more of a hassle than a beaded tire because the folding tire has been stored in a flat folded position and has no memory of being on a rim thus the sidewall flops around a bit till you get it on, and it needs to stretch a bit which it will do on the rim, but once it's been on for about a couple of weeks it forms a memory and stretches and than it's far easier than a wire beaded tire.

Also keep in mind that a tight to install folding tire means that if you should have a blowout the tire is less likely to come of the rim vs an easy slipped on tire. Remember what I said that a wire beaded will stay on a rim better than a folding tire in the event of a blowout, this is why you shouldn't be insisting that you get folding tires that slip on the rim like butter because in a blowout it will come off like butter and even faster because they've stretched a bit.